You would be forgiven for thinking that a match containing the likes of Willian, Remo Freuler, Renan Lodi, and João Palhinha was perhaps a UEFA Champions’ League group game, but you would be wrong. Instead, this was a clash between two freshly promoted teams which, perhaps more than any other, showed the increasing lure of the Premier League to top quality players.
Back to back 3-2 defeats will never be a good look for a team, but back to back 3-2 defeats in which you’ve thrown away a lead is undoubtedly worse. After throwing away a two-goal lead against Bournemouth last time out, Nottingham Forest let another half-time lead slip against Fulham, something that Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, will surely see as an increasingly concerning pattern for Steve Cooper.
Following the disappointing result against Bournemouth, Cooper made three changes, bringing in Taiwo Awoniyi, Freuler and new signing, Willy Boly, whilst dropping Jesse Lingard, Joe Worrall and Cheikhou Kouyaté to the bench. Reverting from the 3421 they deployed against the Cherries to their preferred 3412, it was clear that Steve Cooper wanted to introduce some more firepower up top and adopt a counter-attacking style against opponents that were expected to dominate possession. Despite this set up, Forest had 45% possession in the opening 15 minutes of the game, and it was in this period that the home side scored the opener a Morgan Gibbs-White corner was flicked on by Ryan Yates to find an unmarked Taiwo Awoniyi at the far post who took his chance well.
Not a lot was known about 25-year-old Taiwo Awoniyi in England before he was picked up by Forest in June. The Nigerian arrived fresh off a 20-goal season for Union Berlin in the Bundesliga, having only joined them the season before for a £6.5 million fee. His performances earned him a £17 million move to the Premier League and the opener against Fulham was his second goal for his new club this season. Having not started against Bournemouth, many were wondering whether he had fallen down the pecking order to Sam Surridge or Lingard, though it soon became clear that Cooper has faith in his new signing, whom he gave the hallowed number 9 shirt once worn by Forest greats like Trevor Francis, Nigel Clough and Roy Keane.
At no point was their lead against Fulham a secure one though. Out of position, the team shape was essentially a straight five across the back with Gibbs-White joining the front line to morph into more of a 523 structure. Focused entirely on maintaining their lead, Forest defended on the edge of their own box for much of the first half, as is reflected by their drop to just 25% possession for the remainder of the first half. This enabled Fulham to continue to receive the ball in the half spaces and deliver dangerous balls to their forwards who failed to put their chances away. Frankly, it was only thanks to João Palhinha squandering a 0.22 xG chance when he could have squared it to the free-scoring Aleksandar Mitrović that Forest went into the break with their 1-0 lead still intact.
Boly’s introduction to the Forest defence meant that they hadn’t fielded the same back line in four games. The constant chopping and changing cannot be good for a team that already have the daunting task of acclimatising to a new league with 23 new players on their books, which brings with it the additional challenge of finding the balance between finding your strongest eleven and developing relationships between the defenders themselves, and with goalkeeper, Dean Henderson. In a back three system (or back five as was this case in this match), the understanding between centre-backs and wing-backs is crucial to reducing risk out wide, but the reality is that Forest are developing these relationships on a game-by-game basis, a dangerous experiment to carry out at Premier League level. This is a weakness that Marco Silva identified and sought to exploit, with 78.4% of Fulham’s attacks from open play coming from out wide, accounting for 0.75 of their 1.3 xG.
This pattern of play largely continued in the second half, with Forest looking to sit deep and counter when possible, as we saw in the 48th minute when Brennan Johnson made a dangerous run in behind that was ultimately dealt with by Bernd Leno. Despite Forest’s lack of possession, Gibbs-White had enough impressive touches to suggest that in a more settled side he could prove to be the difference maker. His midfield partner Remo Freuler was also impressive in the first half, winning two tackles and making three blocks, but the constant pressure from Fulham meant that Forest’s deep defensive line was always likely to break at some point. The first Fulham goal came from a Willian corner, with Mitrović putting in an intelligent block on Ryan Yates that allowed Tosin Adarabioyo to drive a free header home and level the score.
Fulham began to move the ball around a lot quicker after the goal and it only took 3 minutes before it was in the back of the Forest net again, this time from a João Palhinha rocket (0.03 xG) after he found himself in acres of space on the edge of the area thanks to the Reds’ backline backing off far too deep, perhaps anticipating yet another cross from Willian before he cut it back to his fellow Portuguese-speaking teammate. Punch drunk and shocked, Forest found themselves at sixes and sevens when Fulham again exploited the wide areas and Bobby Decordova-Reid floated in a cross for the onrushing Harrison Reed to score his first goal for Fulham. An example perhaps that showed just how vulnerable Forest were, when a player who hasn’t scored since 2019 finds himself in glorious isolation in the box.
The third goal prompted a flurry of substitutions from Steve Cooper, who replaced Steve Cook, Boly, Awoniyi and Freuler with Lingard, Worrall, Surridge and Lewis O’Brien in the space of just six minutes, moves that allowed Forest to shift to a more attacking 4-2-3-1/4-2-4 shape depending on possession. Many had called for O’Brien to start the game given his creativity and tenacity in the middle of the park, and he quickly gave the fans something to cheer about when he tucked home Johnson’s deflected cross after Lingard had freed the young Welsh striker in behind with a wonderful, chipped ball over the top. With the home fans behind them and their tails up, Forest pushed for an equaliser, but no real chances emerged before full time.
This was the second of four games that Forest would have been hoping for at least six points from in a critical period for any team hoping to avoid the drop. Failing to take a single point in consecutive games against the two other newly promoted sides is not the start to this run that they would have been hoping for and it might well provide their upcoming opponents, Leicester and Aston Villa, with a much-needed boost, two sides that are under pressure themselves. Given the sheer investment into this squad by Marinakis, which is not unlike Fulham’s approach to recruitment post-promotion in 2020-21 when they bought 15 new players, the Greek media mogul will no doubt be expecting Cooper to turn things around sharpish. Perhaps even more concerning for Cooper is the recent fate of ex-Huddersfield manager, Carlos Corberán, who was sacked from his position as manager at Olympiakos, Marinakis’ other team, after just eleven games in charge and three defeats to his name.
In the Championship, Forest developed a reputation for front-footed and tactically interesting football since the appointment of Cooper in September 2021, but just like against Manchester City and again against Fulham, there will be games in the Premier League where they must soak up the pressure and use their tricky and pacey forwards to hit superior opposition on the counter as frequently as possible. The international break will hopefully give Cooper and his staff enough time to learn some lessons from their underwhelming start to the season and turn this side into a more defensively sound, counter-attacking outfit. The fact that Forest have so far seemed unable to keep a lead will be a major worry for a team in the bottom three, and if these patterns don’t change soon, then Cooper’s job will soon be on the line and the risk of relegation will become worryingly real for the Reds.
By Tom Haddock
