It would be an understatement to suggest that Nottingham Forest is the underdog in their matchup with Manchester City on Saturday.
The Reds are not a horrible team, despite this. Not at all. The highlight of Forest’s strong start to the season was their outstanding victory at Chelsea.
However, they will be facing a team that has won every game thus far this season, is coming off a treble-winning season, and, to top it all off, has not suffered a home loss in nearly a year.
So, how did they manage to achieve it? NottinghamshireLive questioned Jay Harris, a Brentford correspondent for The Athletic, about how Thomas Frank’s team caused City such a lot of issues and whether Forest can pick up anything from the Bees’ strategy.
“The second game [at Brentford] was the final game of the season when City put out quite a weakened team, which helps,” he added. “I believe what makes Brentford so challenging is that they always have a strategy when they face one of the top six clubs, which Thomas Frank discussed pretty eloquently on Monday Night Football.
“Ben Mee has also discussed it in the past, but in essence, Brentford likes to line-up with three centre-backs and two wing-backs, typically Rico Henry and Aaron Hickey. In that Man City game, the emphasis wasn’t on stopping Erling Haaland as one might anticipate, but rather on how can we cut off the supply to him?
The goal was to stop Kevin de Bruyne, therefore Ben Mee had a duty to leave the back three and basically harass, annoy, and do whatever it took to stop De Bruyne from firing balls into the box.
Naturally, a little luck is necessary, but I also believe that Brentford’s two goals in their 2-1 victory at the Etihad came from a set piece and a counterattack, so there almost needs to be an acceptance that opportunities will not be created through open play. You must possess speed on the break in addition to being able to threaten from corners and free kicks.
Ivan Toney, a striker for Brentford, bagged a brace in the Bees’ victory at the Etihad last season, and Jay has noted how his aerial prowess caused the champions so many issues. Forest may want to consider emulating this with Taiwo Awoniyi up front.
They’re among the league’s finest at scoring goals from specific scenarios, and I also believe Brentford pushed many runners past Ivan Toney.
It’s crucial to put their victory over Man City in perspective by remembering that just a few days earlier, they had lost on penalties to Gillingham in the Carabao Cup. As a result, no one really anticipated their victory at the Etihad. Before the World Cup break, it was the last game, and I even wrote an article predicting that Man City will totally destroy them.
But in the changing room, Thomas Frank said, “We shouldn’t come here and be frightened. He wasn’t necessarily suggesting it was a free hit. We shouldn’t get here in fear. Harland may not have been fully fit, despite Thomas Frank’s declaration that he wanted him to participate. When Man City fielded a full starting 11, I want us to win.
So, even that mindset, which says, “We can get three points here, it’s not about how we can avoid looking foolish, and we’ll take a one-nil defeat if you offer it to us,” is, in my opinion, pretty potent.
While Jay thinks a potential combination between Awoniyi and Elanga versus City might be problematic, he is skeptical that Forest’s midfield will be able to match the level of effort Brentford shown at the Etihad last year.
“Awoniyi is obviously a very physical striker and he’s been in great form to start the season,” the man continued. “I believe there are some clear parallels there, such as how someone like Elanga might play off Awoniyi, for instance.
“I believe that Forest may have more difficulty since there are so many players with flair, such as Morgan Gibbs-White, who performs best when he is on the ball. What happens if Forest only has 20% of the ball in a game? I estimate that Brentford had 21% of the ball during that match, and I wouldn’t say that they had a lot of flair players in their midfield that needed to be active on the ball frequently. I believe there was internal acceptance they were going to put in a lot of slogging that day with the crew
“Perhaps it’s unfair of me to say so after Forest defeated Chelsea and performed admirably against Man United, but the challenge at hand is bigger. I’ll be curious to see how you still manage to get players like Morgan Gibbs-White on the ball in specific circumstances because when he does, he has to act right away since he won’t have many chances to produce the goods.
