Nottingham Forest are flying at the top of the Premier League and, thanks To Chris Wood's goals, look set for an improbable Champions League finish. Adam Clery examines how the hell that's happened, and why they're more than good enough to do it.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Right, hello everybody, Adam Cleary from 442 here and welcome to the most requested video
00:09we have had in 2025. Nottingham bloody Forest, third in the Premier League right now and
00:16looking good value for it. To say their season is panning out unexpectedly would be an understatement
00:23on a par with saying owner Evangelos Maranakis is hard to miss. Because he's massive, he's
00:29imposing, he's impressive, he's terrifying and so too now is his football team. In fact
00:34so much so that they have got Chelsea, Aston Villa, Manchester City, Newcastle, all of
00:39them thanking the good Lord above there might be a fifth Champions League place this season.
00:44But how? How has Nuno Espirito Santo done this? Because when you look at the underlying
00:49numbers Nottingham Forest are not the third best team in the Premier League and yet when
00:54you watch them play in real life they clearly are the third best team in the Premier League.
00:59So welcome then my dear friends to a video I desperately want to call but can't because
01:03it's YouTube. What the f*** is going on with Nottingham Forest?
01:09Right, so very broadly speaking this has been Nottingham Forest this season but a couple
01:16of little changes. Williams isn't always necessarily in the left back but by and large when available
01:20this is the XI that's getting picked. There's a couple of things we need to cover here right.
01:24First of all is the shape because it's not just a 4-2-3-1 it's actually a little bit
01:28cleverer than that. Then it's how it works out of possession which then leads into how
01:32it works in possession and then finally the mystery of Chris Wood. So I'm going to start
01:38with a couple of stats just to show you why this team makes absolutely zero sense right.
01:43Bottom of the entire Premier League this season for possession. No team has seen the ball
01:50less than Nottingham Forest. They are 15th on the total amount of XG, they are 13th on
01:55the total attempts on goal, they are rock bottom for the number of attempted and completed
02:00passes. These are the numbers, chums, of a team that is scrapping for its very life.
02:07They're comparable to Ipswich, to Southampton, they're exactly the same almost as Luton last
02:12season. But then you go to the one graph that actually matters here, the Premier League
02:16table and it all checks out like 40 goals isn't loads but it more than justifies their
02:21position in the European places and 27 goals conceded absolutely justifies a position in
02:28the top four. So hence why I wanted to call the video this. What the ****? So first up
02:34why are they so hard to beat? Because this explains the lack of possession right. Nottingham
02:37Forest are not interested in either A, the ball and passing it round or B, trying to
02:44win it back in the opposition third. They care not one jot for your pathetic little
02:50pressing. They rank 20th and that's last remember for the number of tackles won in
02:55the opposition third, second last for the number of tackles won in the middle third
02:59but then second highest for the number of tackles won in their own third. They do their
03:04defending in the defending place. The thing is a lot of teams defend really deep don't
03:10they? Usually really bad teams that still end up conceding a lot of goals because they're
03:14surrendering a lot of territory and then never seem to score when they're up the other end.
03:18Certainly not teams that are third in the Premier League and what's different about
03:21the way Forest do it is it tends to look a little bit like this. So you've got here and
03:27I'll just show you here then show you it in actual games right is a mid-block which means
03:30you're starting your defensive line more or less on the halfway line. But Forest don't
03:34do that and then squeeze it up and leave space in behind. Their defenders and their holding
03:39midfielders are still quite deep while they sort of not press but look to block passing
03:45lanes with their forward four players. So the back four are quite compact and Anderson
03:50and Yates are proper proper workhorses. Underrated technically in my opinion but they're mostly
03:55in there for their engine and their industry. They basically stop anything happening in
03:59front of the goal but when the creative players find these pockets of spaces to get in that's
04:05okay. These players will try and stop the passers getting into them but if they get
04:09there there's still not too much they can do. And this does mean that yes teams end
04:13up seeing a lot of the ball which is why those possession stats are so low and they're
04:17actually 13th so low quite bad for the number of shots they allow to happen against them.
04:23But if you look at the average distance of said shots they've got the third best. So
04:28teams see a lot of the ball and they get it around this area quite a lot but they're often
04:31reduced to just hitting it wildly from anywhere. Like if you care about xg then their xg against
04:37so the combined value of all the chances they've conceded is bettered only by Liverpool and
04:42Manchester City this season. So this clearly works really well. But the reason why this
04:48approach has got them into third in the league rather than just making them hard to break
04:53down at mid table side is because of the positioning of these four players here. Like instinctively
04:59you would think that the wide players would drop back you get two blocks of four and then
05:03maybe Gibbs White drops into the middle to make it even harder and Wood just sort of
05:07floats around but no all four of them stay in that initial defensive line. And what that
05:13means is that when this unit of six eventually turns the ball over either by forcing a pass
05:18that isn't really there or winning it back because they are good at winning it back in
05:21that area straight away there are four really inviting out balls to get them up the pitch.
05:28And that Forrester 7 Brighton 0 game might be the best example of a styles clash I have
05:33seen outside of a TNA World Championship match. I don't know if anyone is going to
05:37get that joke right. So these are Brighton's defenders their centre backs and their goalkeeper.
05:42This is how they passed it in that game. You will almost send yourself to sleep. No offence
05:47Brighton fans look at the amount of sideways passes there are between the two centre backs
05:51the goalkeeper going here the goalkeeper going there. It's very obvious to see what they're
05:55doing. But Forrest who actually went to a back three in this game seemingly just to
05:58spite this video I'm making. This is their goalkeeper and three centre backs with even
06:04more players than were there. There are some that are side to side. Yes but look at the
06:09sheer volume of these that go forward either directly into dangerous areas where one of
06:15these players are or just splitting through what would have been the Brighton press. They
06:19don't care about holding on to that ball. They want to get it deep with you committed
06:24up the pitch and then get it into these lads as quickly as they can.
06:28And in that game time and time again because of just how enslaved to this idea Brighton
06:32were of squeezing Forrest in this area they got in they got out they got through on goal
06:38they got seven goals and even the chances they spurned most of them came from doing
06:44this. That could have been nine or ten that match honestly. And I'll show you as well
06:47from that Brighton match right. This is every single regain of possession Nottingham Forrest
06:52made. You can see there's virtually nothing going on in the attacking third like maybe
06:56a stray ball here and there or somebody going in for a 50 50 but they are perfectly happy
07:01to be patient and to wait and to stay disciplined and to defend in this area. They're second
07:07in the league for the total number of interceptions. So it's not even that they're aggressively
07:11going to win the ball back. They're forcing you into positions where you have no options
07:16and they can nip in with one of these four just cut the ball out with Yates and Anderson
07:21like it's it shouldn't work this because football now is all supposed to be about intensity
07:26and aggression and winning the ball and nearer the goal and doing this and doing that. But
07:30they've just thrown it all the way back to let's have our defenders defend and then let's
07:35have our attackers attack. And nobody seems to know what to do about that. And speaking
07:39of which this is the other quite clever part right. So I'm going to show you a couple of
07:42still images right from goals Forrest have scored and I want you to tell me I know you
07:48can't actually communicate through a screen but just in your head tell me what you think
07:53these goals all have in common. Right. So first of all you got this one from the Man
07:57United game and also this one and then this one from when they played Tottenham. This
08:03one is from the Brighton game. This is also from the Brighton game. And this one is from
08:08when they played Leicester. And I promise you I could have given you like 100 examples
08:12exactly like this but we haven't got all day have we. So what do you think was the similarity
08:17between all of those goals in every single one of them. The only players who are attacking
08:22for Nottingham Forest or in attacking positions are their four attackers. There is no late
08:28box crashing run from the two midfielders. There is no overlapping runs from the full
08:32back or anything like that. These all stay in position. They stay set. They are ready
08:39to defend at all times. And these four just get on with scoring the goals. And the reason
08:44that works is pretty much down to the personnel like Alanga, Gibbs White, Hudson-Odoi. These
08:49are three about as perfect as you could imagine attacking players to play behind a big static
08:55object in Chris Wood, receive, defeat, turn and run. Like these are Hudson-Odoi for example's
09:00take on numbers and his possession numbers this season. Like they are extra for a team
09:05that barely sees the ball remember. These are extraordinary. Like the total number of
09:09take ons and carries are quite low because of the possession staff but the successful
09:13take ons, the progressive carries, the times they get it into the final third, the times
09:17they get it into the penalty area. Like these are top, top, top numbers across the Premier
09:23League and that's because the three of them are really good at that. And also one major
09:28benefit of having loads of proper defenders who are dead big men who'd like to get amongst
09:33it is they're second only behind set piece FC Arsenal for the number of goals they've
09:38got from set pieces. And that is undeniably brilliant for a number of reasons because
09:42first of all it massively conserves energy. Forest don't really have any players who are
09:48expected to run the entire length of the pitch. Like even the wide attackers they don't really
09:53go that much further back than the halfway line and the full backs there's no real expectation
09:58on them. It's not part of the game plan to provide big sweeping overlapping runs. Like
10:02they will on occasion when the situation avails itself but it's not their instruction. They're
10:07not going to burn themselves out doing it. And when you look at the sheer amount of games
10:11that teams are playing at the minute and all just the pulls and the tweaks to the creamy
10:14creamy hammies that nobody seems to be thinking about. Forest have actually found a pretty
10:18clever way here to ensure that a core of small group of players does not get burnt out and
10:24is not having injury upon injury upon injury. Like clever this but also as well as their
10:30creamy creamy hammies. I'm going to stop saying creamy creamy hammies from now on. It also
10:34ensures they have good rest defence. Now rest defence was a term that got weirdly popular
10:39last season. I think Eric Ten Haag said it once and everyone was like what's he on about?
10:43It's basically just this sort of mindset of if you are not attacking so you're one of
10:47the defenders or a holding midfielder you actually are mentally waiting for your team
10:52to lose the ball. So you're constantly holding a position that will make you hard to counter
10:56attack or break against. Nobody's running out of the shape or getting caught the wrong
11:00side to their rest defence because these six don't really worry about the attack is dead
11:05good. Right so anyway that is the story of Nottingham Forest. But the thing about stories
11:10of forests is that they're actually really stories of wood. Is that anything? I might
11:19cut that. Chris Wood is a statistical apparition this season. A gift sent down from footballing
11:25heaven to smite and spite everybody who was more interested in expected goals than they
11:31are in just having a nice time. 33 years old, 17 goals in 24 games and all from a statistical
11:38model that says he should only have 9. The man is currently overperforming the sports
11:45most respected mathematical formula at a rate of almost 100%. And just to break this down
11:52for you this makes him currently the greatest finisher in the entire Premier League. I guarantee
11:57I'm going to miss this start up right but on goals minus xg which is basically how you
12:02measure your performance relative to the alleged quality of your chances right he is currently
12:08at plus 0.31 right which in English means that about once every three games he will
12:17get you a goal that simply does not exist statistically. And if that still doesn't make
12:22sense right think about it this way if over the next 10 games the numbers say that Chris
12:27Wood should score 6 goals right the way he's playing now he'll actually get 9. 9. And not
12:37Alexander Isak at plus 0.14 not Salah at plus 0.12 or Haaland at plus 0.03 are currently
12:45anywhere near that level of clinicity like the average number in the Premier League is
12:50plus 0.02 like there's loads of strikers who have a negative number they underperform this
12:56figure and Chris Wood is a million miles away in the positive numbers he's having the
13:02season of his life. Actually no hang on I wrote this down to explain it right if the
13:06average is plus 0.02 that means the average Premier League player gets you a goal out
13:11of nothing every 50 50 games and this season Chris Wood is getting you one out of nothing
13:17every three every three games and there's no like secret part of this video where I'm
13:23like oh the reason why he's taking chances like this all of a sudden it's just really
13:28good finishing like he's trying to do the things that he's always trying to do that
13:32every centre forward's trying to do they're just coming off for him at a rate the statistics
13:37say they probably shouldn't so good for him. And the men in white coats both the ones that
13:42do the numbers and the ones that desperately want to cart me off and give me a nice comfortable
13:45room will tell you that over time this should revert to the norm like this won't stay like
13:52this forever but bottom line if it makes every single person with an NG postcode have
13:58to check when their passport expiry is who cares so yeah that's Nottingham Forest undoubtedly
14:05the most fun thing happening in the Premier League this season and soon to just be terrorising
14:11a Champions League near you. And if you enjoyed this kind of thing you can get me across all
14:14of my various socials at Adam Cleary C L E R Y the 442 socials there in the corner of
14:18the video the latest issue of the magazine the beautiful magazine that we publish the
14:22best bit of football writing in the world in my opinion that's available from all good
14:27retailers and the crap ones as well but more importantly my friends please subscribe to
14:31us here on 442 and let us know your thoughts about Nottingham Forest are you a Forest fan
14:36does this all make sense has it taken you by surprise do you think it's going to last
14:40all thoughts all feelings all poetry all verse the true songs of your heart please in the
14:45comments below I do really like reading all of them but until next time though I am really
14:50sorry about that Chris Woods Forest joke but not as sorry as I am that Durian Timber went
14:57to Arsenal and not here so you come for the insights you stay for the comedy so which
15:05means I'm gonna go also so yeah bye love you bye