Blackburn 0 Forest 1

Chris Hughton began his Nottingham Forest career with a win against in-form Blackburn Rovers. Both teams will look very different in the coming weeks; less than ideal preparations on both sides led to a drab, scrappy encounter from which Forest barely scraped a welcome victory.

Hughton named a familiar looking side in a 4-2-3-1 system using a soft press, setting up to sit back and get the basics right with the emphasis on defence. Ryan Yates earned a deserved recall.

Tony Mowbray deployed Blackburn in his 4-3-3 system, complaining that the team was ‘thrown together’; they were without three or four of this season’s top performers as well as any of their recent loan additions. With Bradly Dack still recovering from a cruciate ligament injury, on paper this was as poor a Rovers side as any team will face this season.

The match was dictated by the two team’s different pressing games. As Forest concentrated on defence, they were very conservative in this regard, ceding possession and often allowing the opposition well into their half of the pitch before making efforts to repel them.

Blackburn pressed more aggressively, harrying the Forest defenders with their three forwards, and pushing up confidently as a team, in order to force The Reds to play direct passes instead of playing through the middle.

A Twitter user, unsympathetic to Forest’s plight, commented to me during the game that any team at this level should be able to deal with pressing. This is harsh, as there is another team at the same level instigating the press in the first place. If it was simple or easy for any competent team to routinely break a well organised press, teams would not press, as it would leave them vulnerable.

It’s interesting (to me anyway) watching what happens when a team playing a 4-3-3 uses an aggressive press. The shape of the system appears ideal if the players work hard and are organised, especially against a 4-2-3-1 like Forest were playing.

The three attackers are naturally in a good position to swarm forward and pressure defenders, causing passing around the defence to be dangerous. Behind them, the midfield trio lurk, ready to harass any central midfielder showing for the ball.

Further down the pitch the 4-2-3-1’s lone striker, Lewis Grabban, is being handled by two defenders – this gives the full-backs more confidence to join the press and make life difficult for the Forest wingers if they receive possession.

As an aside, the type of player Grabban is does not help in this situation. A target man would be better suited to the kind of system Hughton employed, as Grabban is more suited to moving around in search of the ball – with Forest sitting deep this was not what was called for, as a presence was required up the pitch.

This all looked very neat and tidy for Blackburn – off the ball everything fit together nicely, and as depleted as they were, Mowbray had drilled them well enough to be able to stifle and choke Forest of any real creativity, succeeding in forcing them to play longer balls rather than pass through midfield.

Even the introduction of Arter failed to create an outlet in front of the Forest defence – not a man to hide from the ball, he nevertheless touched it only 4 times in his first 2o minutes on the pitch.

The Forest attackers were actually winning their fair share of those direct passes, but the situation still favoured Rovers; Grabban and Freeman, as well as Joe Lolley and Sammy Ameobi when they came forward, tended to be isolated and easily neutralised.

This was because Blackburn’s hard press, coupled with Forest’s conservative system, was effecting The Reds ability to get up the pitch and support the attackers when they received the ball. The cavalry simply could not get up the pitch in time to help consolidate possession.

The Reds were concentrating on keeping things tight at the back and were therefore sitting quite deep. The full-backs were not pushed up far enough to help as much as they might have been, especially in the first half, declining to risk leaving space for Blackburn’s front three should the ball be turned over.

Forest therefore struggled to maintain possession in the Blackburn half, and were often forced to pass forward in a direct manner rather than show any patience or guile on the ball, leading to having only 39% of possession.

The Garibaldi did manage to break through few times and looked dangerous when they did, especially when Freeman was on the ball, or later in the game when the full-backs were probably given license to take more risks by venturing forward, but Blackburn’s hard work in their seemingly tailor made system made these forays few and far between.

However, the 4-3-3 has actually become vulnerable in modern football when high pressing is employed – teams have evolved to beat these types of press, as Forest demonstrated just last season when they came up against similar systems.

Under Sabri Lamouchi Forest tried to strike on the counter attack by using fluid movement off the ball, as I have discussed in this previous article. The Fulham game last season is a great example; Forest dismantled a much better team’s aggressive press in a 4-3-3 system. Ben Watson dropped back to split the Forest defence in possession, which pushed up the full-backs making them closer to the action when the midfield’s well practiced movement created an outlet for direct, but intelligent forward passing. Once this is happening, the fact that the pressing team has three forwards actually works against them, as they do not have enough players in the middle of the pitch to cope with the opposition’s running off the ball.

So in a way, tactically, Forest’s system on Saturday represented a backwards step – which is why the understrength Blackburn side managed to, the lucky deflection aside, stifle an arguably more talented side.

This is not a criticism of Hughton; Mowbray has been drilling his players and tinkering since February 2017, the Forest man has been implementing his system for two weeks. It will take time to get his side playing in a way which will give them that creative edge that so many teams struggle to find.

Instead of the movement and endeavor required to break Blackburn's press, Hughton’s main focus was on defence, and Forest looked refreshingly solid.

It was much easier for the players to drop back into a defensive shape, precisely because of all the reasons touched upon earlier when talking about why Forest struggled creatively; the midfielders were not allowed the freedom they were for much of Lamouchi’s tenure, nor were the full-backs given licence to play as much cat-and-mouse, therefore on giving away the ball these players were well positioned to slip back into their defensive shape.

Obviously Forest’s soft press and cautious defensive line was always likley to result in defensive stability; Hughton bolstered this by giving the wingers instructions to drop back and support the full-backs, almost creating a 4-5-1 at times when out of possession. This helped the defensive midfielders focus more on defending the middle of the pitch, instead of being dragged out wide - a common trait of this formation which caused Forest a few problems last season.

It was a good away performance; solid at the back with less emphasis on creativity, stealing a goal when the opportunity came along. For all that Blackburn saw of the ball, even for long periods in Forest’s half, they created few chances, and that is sometimes all an away team can ask.

It will be interesting to see how Hughton bridges the gap between attack and defence. The acquisitions of Anthony Knockaert and (probably) Kamil Grosicki should be enough to ensure more creativity whatever strategy he goes for.

Knockaert's record at this level is unquestionable, yet Grosicki is arguably the better player of the two and should his transfer be ratified, they would complement Lolley and Ameobi well.

Hughton will certainly have the weapons at his disposal to score goals – if he can wield them while maintaining Forest’s new found defensive solidity, we will be in for a good season.

Thanks to www.whoscored.com, SofaScore and sharemytactics.com .

Most of all thanks for reading, but I would also like to put on record my thanks to Sabri Lamouchi for leading the club with such grace, and making it fun for a while. I'm sure he reads this...