GOOD NEWS: DEAL TO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN NOTTINGHAM FOREST VS ARSENAL…
A cursory glance at the league standings indicates that Arsenal’s matchup with Forest shouldn’t be too tough, especially considering our recent success at home. And Forest isn’t it the lowest team in the league?
Yes, they are 16th and Arsenal is third, but we can still reflect on the way the team defeated Palace, a team that is one spot and point above Forest.
However, as you may already be aware, we think that recent performance tells us more about how teams are performing than the entire season, thus below is the table for the past ten games played so far this season (although we will come
Even so, Forest’s recent success has been encouraging, and perhaps we are factoring that nice home victory over Palace into the statistics. In order to be fair, let’s limit this to the last six games. At this point, things do not appear very good.
Let’s compare Forest’s home record during the same span of play to Arsenal’s away record during the last six games. Naturally, this eliminates the details of the Palace victory and a usually fruitful home stand (arsenal, based on their previous six games, are currently ranked second in the league).
But since we have to look at Arsenal away from home and Forest at home due to reality, we can now say that Arsenal and Forest are about equal. Actually, in the last six games, Arsenal has scored one less goal away from home than Forest has.
Thus, everything hinges on Arsenal continuing to build on their victories at home, especially their victory over Palace. With being said, it’s worth noting that Arsenal typically outperforms Forest in head-to-head matches. In actuality, Arsenal has won 53 games, Forest has won 29, and the remaining 22 are tied.
However, Arsenal’s performance versus Forest has been inconsistent lately. Arsenal has won three and lost three of its last six games across all competitions. However, Arsenal has scored 14 goals and Forest has scored six, even the score somewhat.
If we limit our analysis to league play, Arsenal has only lost once in the past seven games, and it was an away loss. Arsenal has won six of the previous seven. Actually, Forest has only won five games this year, three of them have taken place at home. These wins came against Aston Villa, Sheffield United, and Manchester United. that they can partially activate it.
However, a glance at the bottom of the season’s league table indicates that the Forest camp will be a little concerned. It is true that they are in 16th place, four points ahead of Luton Town, but their ranking is aided by Everton’s ten-point loss.
Forest drops to 17th place if Everton wins their appeal and there are no additional point sanctions for any infractions. Indeed, they would remain four points ahead of Luton Town.
Here’s the weird part, though. This is the bottom of the league’s standings of the last six games, which includes both home and away games.
It’s possible that you’ve noticed that over the past six games, Luton, Burnley, and Sheffield United—the league’s worst three teams—have not been in the bottom four. which implies Nottingham Forest may incur significant costs if they continue to make mistakes.
However, that table extract alone is also noteworthy. Would Manchester United and Newcastle United, two of the “Big Seven,” really be among the four teams in the bottom spots after the previous six games, if you asked any of your football-savvy friends to name them? Perhaps, if they are stats geeks, but probably not.