Nottingham Forest's Premier League Run: Analyzing Their Success with PFF FC Data
Nottingham Forest’s campaign in the Premier League has been a big surprise. Prior to the season, the narrative was that the team would likely fight against relegation. However, that cannot be further from the current situation, the team has soared to an improbable 3rd place in the Premier League, beating Liverpool at Anfield and holding Chelsea and Brighton to draws away from home whilst being down to 10 men. What is behind their success? We delve into the PFF FC metrics and grades to look deeper into the traits that have helped their success.
Forest is currently ranked only 14th in expected goals (xG) but 2nd in xG against, behind only Liverpool. They have allowed only 10 chances (best in the league) and 16 half-chances (second best behind Arsenal). They rank 6th in expected points, which is great in itself, but they are over-performing even that high expectation.
Who needs ball possession?
No other team in the league has spent more time without the ball than Nottingham Forest, they have spent about 780 minutes without the ball. The data paints a picture of a team happy to concede possession, and conserve energy by sitting in a low block. They have covered the 3rd most distance out of possession, but only 9.3% of it was at speeds of over 20km/h which is the lowest in the league.
There is not much of an attempt to press the opposing defenders or even the opposing defensive/centre midfielders. They rank 18th in the league in percentage of attempted pressures on centre-backs and goal keepers) and 2nd lowest percentage of defensive and centre-midfielders. When the ball reaches a winger or an attacking-midfielder, their rate of attempted pressures increase, but interestingly they are much more interested in pressing the passing lanes than the player itself, they still rank 17th in player pressures, but they rank 4th in the league in passing lane pressures. Now the opposition’s centre forwards do not have an easy life against them, they are currently 2nd in pressure rate against centre forwards, which helps to limit the quality of their opponent’s chances.
The compact defense is made even harder to crack when you combine the individual performances of Nikola Milenkovic who currently has a challenge grade of 86.3 (4th amongst centre-backs), and a solid clearance grade of 80.6 (9th amongst centre-backs), Murillo has a clearance grade of 88.6 (3rd best), and Ola Aina with a solid challenge grade of 79.1 (7th amongst full-backs).
Just long ball football, or is it?
Well yes, it is, but not entirely. They have more passes down the field aiming to create a contest than any other team, a whopping 354 passes which is 30 more than the second highest. They like to put long throw-ins into the box, having more of those than any other team as well. Their players tend to not hold on to the ball very long, the average length of possession is of 1.24 seconds which is the lowest in the league, they also have the highest percentage of one-touch passes at 43.9%.
Now all of that is consistent with trying to play down the field trying to get a flick, but they still mix in quick one-touch passes on the ground, they also rank 4th overall in non-aerial one-touch passes, which is uncharacteristic for a team trying to play long ball football. We actually see a good example of it in their second goal against Brighton, and their first goal of the season against Bournemouth (ok that had a blocked clearance and not a great parry by the goalkeeper to lead to the goal, but the point on the style of play stands).
I feel the need, the need for speed
Well, they have got speed. Which suits their style of looking to counter-attack. Anthony Elanga currently is 4th in the league in max speed and Ola Aina is 10th with a max speed of 34.4km/h and 33.7km/h, respectively. The contrast of the running speeds in and out of possession are night and day, which supports the philosophy of trying to defend and be explosive when they have the ball. Although they are dead last in the league in distance covered with speed over 20km/h, they are actually the 2nd highest in the league when they are in possession.
Great Individual performances
Chris Wood is having a phenomenal season with an overall shooting grade of 91.6 which ranks 3rd in the league, aided by being the best in the league in headed shots with a grade of 97.7, and 89.6 with his right foot, which is 4th in the league. He is great under pressure too with a shooting grade of 94.8 under pressure which is 2nd best in the league.
Callum Hudson-Odoi is also having a very good season with a passing grade of 86.6 which is 10th in the league, but he has solid grades in various different facets of the game, 81.3 in passes under pressure, 86.7 which is the 3rd best ball carry grade in the league, and 83.8 in tackle resistance. Tackle resistance is an area that a lot of Nottingham Forest players are doing quite well, they give the ball away on their own terms, but it’s not so easy getting the ball from them. Elliott Anderson has a grade of 80.3, Ryan Yates with 78.6 and Morgan Gibbs-White with 78.2 are all around the top in their respective positions.
Is it a fluke?
Nottingham Forest’s defense is no joke, which is making them hard to beat. There have certainly been elements that are not usually as sustainable. For example, they have had shots with a grade of +1 or better (Hudson-Odoi against Liverpool, Yates against Leicester, and Aina against West Ham just to name a few), that is currently 2nd in the league, and might come back to the mean a bit at one point, but what we see is a well-structured team that is making it hard on the other teams to score on them, and taking care of the opportunities when they have them, it is a long season and a lot will still happen, but much credit to Nottingham Forest for what they achieved so far.