Forest Boffin

Forest’s recent game against rivals Derby County was interesting in regards of how astute they have become under Sabri Lamouchi in the defensive phase of play. Forest do not see a lot of the ball under Lamouchi; their average possession is just 45.5% - only Hull, Cardiff and Millwall have less in The Championship. At times possession has dropped into the 20-30% area, however there is a clear correlation this season between low possession and results, and the Derby game was another example of the opposition having more of the ball but Forest coming out on top. If I had asked at the start of the season whether fans craved only having 30% possession against the likes of Luton Town, I guess this prospect would not have excited many, however it resulted in a win and this low amount of the ball has not entailed a poor, or even a defensive style of play. Lamouchi isn’t instructing his players to park the bus, he has set them up to draw opponents forward and win the ball in...

After six interesting games under Sabri Lamouchi we are now able to discern the system which he has put into place at Forest, and what it means for their style of play this season. Our new Head Coach has so far deployed a 4-1-4-1. In modern tactics, this formation has developed separately from a couple of different ideas. The more defensive idea saw teams retreating their wide forwards from a 4-3-3, in order to form a defensive block behind the ball, but we have also seen a possession based ethos, as elite teams began cultivating the 4-1-4-1 as a more flexible twist on the 4-2-3-1. This possession hogging, passing style of the 4-1-4-1 was developed by the likes of Luis Aragones, who switched to this system during Spain’s victorious Euro 2008 campaign, and Joachim Low with Germany, but perhaps the best example is Pep Guardiola using a lot of the principles at Barcelona, and implementing them into a 4-1-4-1 at Bayern Munich and Manchester City. These are the teams and managers t...

Sabri Lamouchi's fledgling reign got off to a poor start on Saturday as Forest were tactically outmanoeuvred in a 2-1 loss against promotion contenders West Bromwich Albion. Lamouchi used a 4-1-4-1 formation with Ben Watson patrolling behind an experimental looking bank of four midfielders. Lewis Grabban was tasked with playing alone up front, also notable was Matty Cash slotting in at right-back. Like Forest, Albion also had the look of a team in transition, with new manager Slavan Bilic deploying a 4-2-3-1 system. They have made some good acquisitions during the summer, notably Kenneth Zohore - fresh from a toughening season in The Premier League - and the classy Romaine Sawyers. The Reds started brilliantly with a high tempo first fifteen minutes. Their movement in possession was excellent and simply gave Albion too many problems to cope with. The midfield four proved to be accomplished on the ball and were brave in and out of possession, constantly available as outlets...