🚨BREAKING NEWS :The secrets behind Nottingham Forest’s surprise unbeaten start

Crucial to making sense of Nottingham Forest’s unbeaten start to the Premier League season was eventually realising it makes little sense at all.

Sure, that isn’t helpful, but let’s show you the workings out, a series of contrasting statistics that boil down to the notion that, well, this is football, and that we should know all this better by now anyway.

To begin, Forest have trailed for just 25 minutes of Premier League football this season. They are eighth in the table. Although that is not as high as you would expect an unbeaten club to be, their nine points accrued down to two wins and three draws – mirroring Brighton, with whom they played out a 2-2 draw on Sunday.

That match accounted for half of the goals Forest have conceded in the league and a third of the goals they have scored. Yes, across five games including Brighton away, they have scored six times, and conceded just four.

City’s Ederson and Manchester United’s Andre Onana.

Only West Ham and the relegated trio of Luton, Burnley and Sheffield United shipped in more league goals last season than Forest, but their promising start has been boosted in part by the arrival of Nikola Milenkovic – the Serbian international who joined for just £12m from Fiorentina – and resulted in just two mistakes leading to a shot, a tally lower than 13 clubs.

“There is a really clear difference. Forest were in the limelight too much last season, the points deduction didn’t help,” Max Hayes, presenter of the Garibaldi Red podcast, tells i.

“What is different is that mistakes last season were at an all-time high, throwing away games due to silly errors defensively. They’ve got a solid back four in now and have fixed those issues in the summer. They’ve got Milenkovic in, who is brilliant in the air, and he has slotted in instantly with Murillo, who has been linked with Real Madrid this week.”

Forest have settled on a 4-2-3-1 system that willingly soaks up pressure, an industrious approach typical of a Nuno Espirito Santo side that is summed up by the fact they are 20th for tackles in the attacking third.

Further back, they are third for tackles in their defensive third, while only Manchester United, Wolves and Everton have made more tackles and interceptions combined than Forest’s 152.

We could go on, so we will. Forest are rock-bottom for pass-completion percentage in the league, 19th for carries, 18th for possession – a 40.6 per cent average – and 17th for touches. They are also 17th for passes made, but up in fifth for long passes.

It seemingly defies belief, and speaks of a ruthless efficiency when they do eventually attack, which to throw in yet more confusion, is only partly true.

Forest sit 11th for shots and likewise for goals, and while an impressive 42.6 per cent of their attempts are on target – bettered only by Brentford, Arsenal and Chelsea – only 19 per cent of those shots are then leading to goals, which is among the lowest rates in the league.

Chris Wood, for example, is joint-third in the league for big chances missed (four), and joined by teammate Morgan Gibbs-White and Everton’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin in 19th for overall shots – 11.

Okay, let’s end the numbers there, and consider the general mood at Forest, where a headline performance so far this season came at Anfield, a 1-0 win their first victory at Liverpool for 55 years.

the mentality has to be right and we are doing that as a team. The camp is good.

“I didn’t start but I wasn’t angry or disappointed, I am buzzing, we are all buzzing. It’s nice to get the goals but it’s just the start of the season and I can keep getting more.”

Evidently, the players are dancing to Nuno’s tune.

“They seem to really like Nuno,” Hayes says. “I spoke to a few players and they’ve told me they’re all buying into Nuno’s philosophy. The great thing is the squad has been trimmed and they’ve got the right personnel in. It seems to be a good dressing room.”

It all appears to have stemmed from a positive summer, not only in terms of recruitment.

In comparison to other Premier League clubs, Forest’s pre-season was far more low key, starting at Chesterfield, followed by three friendlies in Murcia, Spain, a home game against Villarreal and to finish a trip to Greece to play – and beat 4-3 – Evangelos Marinakis’ other side, Olympiakos.

Their only loss was a 1-0 to Elche, while the warm-weather training camp truly gave Nuno his first prolonged period of time away from competitive football to imprint his ethos, having been appointed in December.

“It was one of the main objectives we had, to go away in pre-season and work on things we don’t usually have time for, tactically, mentally and physically,” Nuno said in August.

“The relationship between us and the players, and the bond the players have built is very nice.”


Forest’s own take on their pre-season focused greatly on this idea of unity, an article on their website in late July speaking of a “tight-knit” squad using those 10 days in Spain “not only for working hard every day on the training pitch, but on nurturing a powerful team spirit and bond”.

What was essentially an in-house puff piece – led on Marinakis being in attendance, speaking with the players and having dinner with Nuno and his staff – does though read a little rosier given their start. For all the hyperbole, Forest really do appear to have “developed a strong relationship and understanding”.

This is echoed by Hayes, who says: “We had a really good pre-season. There was a good feeling in the summer, a quiet optimism, where the fans could see something was going well. We were making the right signings, investing in the training facilities and the ground, and the hope was it would all add up to a strong start.

frustrate them and then Hudson-Odoi was a game-changer. Nuno has got his tactics spot on every game.”

That will be tested next at home to Fulham, where Forest are without arguably their most influential, and undoubtedly their most creative, player in Gibbs-White, who is suspended after being sent off against Brighton.

Nuno was also set to be absent from the touchline, having seen red along with Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler during a messy aftermath to Gibbs-White’s dismissal, but an appeal has kicked that potential ban down the road.

With Nuno, without Gibbs-White, little will change except Ryan Yates likely earning his second start of the season, while Forest fans are not bothered about what they watch provided the points keep coming.

“There seems to be a rule that has crept into football, it cracks me up when fans say they want to see free-flowing, attacking football,” Hayes adds. “Yeah, if you’re a top six club, but if you’re a team where Forest are, you’re not going to be playing attacking football all the time.

“The league is so tough, you’re coming up against huge teams with a huge budget, and for Forest to stop a team like Liverpool you have to play defensively, counter-attacking low-block football.

“I get it, everyone wants to watch entertaining football, but for Forest fans as long as we’re winning games, we don’t really care.”