As the season heads into February, the race to beat the drop stays as hot as ever as teams after racing against each other throughout to January to strengthen their squads now have it all to fight it out for. With fresh lease of life under Nuno and Taiwo Awoniyi getting slowly back to fitness, Forest have some renewed vigor as the challenge to beat the drop looms. On the other hand, despite all the rough storm that Iraola faced he’s put Bournemouth on a stable path and they definitely are in a position to push for a Top 10 finish. But every game is important and as such, the battle between both these teams promises to be exciting.
While Bournemouth loved to manipulate the ball with all the shape variations and move it accordingly to create space and sequence, Forest are the deadliest transition side in the league and they won’t mind waiting it out for the Cherries to blink first and then catch them apart while sitting it out blocking the varied spaces by the time, as they did against Arsenal in the midweek which in-turn originated a few situations where they caught them by surprise.
This would have worked quite well if it weren’t for Saliba to step in just at the last second to intercept what would have been a 1v1 sequence against David Raya. For Nottingham to pull something like that at City Ground is much different then pulling it off away from home.
Both the teams are coming off a tricky run in build-up to the fixture, while Bournemouth have picked up only one point in the league from the last three fixtures (a possible twelve pointer) – they will want to get back to winning ways to solidify that mid-table position and position themselves for a probable run-in for European places come the business end of the season, the visitors, Nottingham Forest, come into the fixture on back of a couple of losses as they find themselves in another relegation battle with only a couple of points afloat from that bottom three at the start of the gameweek with a quite possible FFP point deduction around the corner.
Bournemouth recently were a part of what was a run of six wins in seven games where they went on to win four on the trot where they went on to win against Palace, United, Forest and Fulham. They’d want to get back to winning ways and create that winning momentum again.
WHEN & WHERE?
DATE: Sunday, 4th February 2024
VENUE: Vitality Stadium
TIME: 14:00 HRS GMT
MATCH OFFICIALS
Referee: Rebecca Welch.
Assistants: Simon Bennett, Dan Robathan.
Fourth official: Tony Harrington.
VAR: Peter Bankes.
Assistant VAR: Simon Long.
HEAD TO HEAD
23 December 2023 – Nottingham Forest 2-3 Bournemouth [Premier League]
21 January 2023 – Bournemouth 1-1 Nottingham Forest [Premier League]
3 September 2022 – Nottingham Forest 2-3 Bournemouth [Premier League]
3 May 2022 – Bournemouth 1-0 Nottingham Forest [Championship]
14 August 2021 – Nottingham Forest 1-2 Bournemouth [Championship]
TEAM NEWS
As it has been since they got promoted, Nottingham Forest continued to make a blast in the transfer window with the singing of United States winger Reyna who joins on loan from Borussia Dortmund and former Newcastle United goalkeeper Matz Sels from French side Strasbourg. While Bournemouth bolstered their attacking front on deadline day, bringing in Turkey international Enes Unal on loan until the end of the season from Getafe.
Coming into the availability side of things, Nuno Tavares returns to the fold after missing out on the Arsenal game with FA restrictions to face the parent club. The duo of Cheikhou Kouyate and Moussa Niakhate could be back available for the visitors with Senegal knocked out. The rest of Serge Aurier, Willy Boly, Ola Aina, and Ibrahim Sangare all remain missing with their national duty owing to the Africa Cup of Nations.
For the hosts, Dango Ouattara is still serving the AFCONS though their is a possibility Adam Smith could return from injury.
KEY PLAYERS and X-FACTORS
Pic: Contrasting Seasons yet, going into the game both Awoniyi and Solanke are the 2 most important players
Dominic Solanke
The man of the moment, he has been in form of his life under Andoni Iraola with a tally of 13 goals in 21 games in the Premier League with 6 of those coming at home. Solanke is developing into an extremely efficient pressing forward who is a goal threat as well.
He links up the play well, and bringing in forwards like into the game is a big trait. And most importantly, having the ability to press from the front intelligently by cutting off passing angles to force high turnovers is a crucial trait. This distinction in on-ball ability is clearest in his progressive carries and take-ons stat. Turner is not the best man you want to have operating with his feet, and he could crumble under sustained pressure and Solanke with runners around him could cause enough havoc for Forest to go long.
Taiwo Awoniyi
Awoniyi has been away for a while but what he means for this Forest team was seen when he came on against Arsenal. While he hasn’t played long, he’s still maintained a great Goal ratio, even bettering Solanke and he’s by far the best X factor in this game.
No matter how many minutes he gets, towards the business end of the game, Awoniyi is the best player you can have on the bench. For Nuno, it will give opportunity to tweak the system as needed to ensure even a hypothetical Wood-Awoniyi given Wood himself has managed to pull weight for forest with 8 goals despite not being billed the main men like Awoniyi is, which is another testament to how important Taiwo is to this team.
PRE-MATCH ANALYSIS
Despite many of their positive traits, Both Bournemouth and Forest have been notorious for conceding a lot of goals. This is evidenced by the high amount of xGA both sides have accumulated with 34.3 and 33 respectively and this translating into 40 goals conceded each. But what holds well for both teams is also the fact that they have relied upon their respective Hitmen in form of Solanke and Chris Wood, who both have been good for both teams with the added bonus that Awoniyi has been the X factor for Forest and as he gets back to fitness.
But when we talk about areas of threat both teams create from, Bournemouth certainly are more strong on their left hand side, as Bournemouth’s xT shows. For Forest, it’s the other way around and this has also been the trend under Nuno as well. But the game’s main aspects comes down to how Nuno’s comparatively more stable 4-2-3-1 system is more suited to prepare against Iraola’s OOP ideas than what we saw with the 3-4-2-1 under Steve Cooper. In that sense, as the pass network shows, Gibbs White’s role has seen him increasingly get more involved in zone 14 (Central zone behind Box) actions. For Bournemouth, this will be a point to focus for.
MUST READ: Nuno Espirito Santo’s Tactical Philosophy
MUST READ: Andoni Iraola and The Importance of Chaos
PREDICTED XI
While there’s no sign of whether Awoniyi is in the best condition or not, it’s expected that Wood could keep his place for Forest and Elanga might be in to the Lineup. With Hudson Odoi also in contention it remains to be seen who does Nuno favor while the Danilo-Mangala duo is expected to stay. For Bournemouth, Solanke could be flanked on either side by Tavernier and Kluviert respectively while Cook, Christie and Billing will partner in midfield. In left back position, Kerkez is favored for the position to start. Wrt the systems, both teams are highly likely to rely upon stopping maximum central transitions using Double pivot setups with Fullback and Wingers more actively involved to generate threat.
Conclusion
With new coach Nuno, Forest have had their task cut out and they have been trying to progress on the right path as much as possible. This match ending in a victory could be significant for Nuno in taking Nottingham a bit farther away from that dreaded relegation places. For Iraola and Bournemouth, this game is all about another test to punch more higher into the table, make up the lost points they had in the 1st half of the season, a period where Iraola’s future was brought into scrutiny.
