Coventry City 2 Forest 1

Forest opened the 2021-22 season on Sunday, victims of a fairytale homecoming for The Sky Blues, playing in Coventry for the first time in two years.

Chris Hughton had a number of selection problems, with players missing from his threadbare senior squad due to injury and coronavirus isolation. Lyle Taylor spearheaded a 4-2-3-1 system, with Alex Mighten and Brennan Johnson starting in attack along with Joe Lolley. Jack Colback and Ryan Yates played disciplined roles in front of an unfamiliar looking defence.

Mark Robins used the 3-4-1-2 trend that featured heavily in The Championship last season – Martyn Waghorn is a notable summer arrival at Coventry, but the danger-man in this side is attacking midfielder Callum O’Hare.

Coventry started the game playing patient football, looking after the ball in their defence and midfield – they dominated possession throughout the match, seeing 67% of the ball. This might be expected for a home team losing for much of the game, but even before conceding Robins’ team had 61% of the ball.

Both this high possession, and where it was (in Coventry’s half of the pitch) was certainly affected by Forest’s system. The Reds were instructed to squeeze high to force the game to be played in Coventry’s half as much as possible.

Forest generally employed a midfield press, with players committing aggressively when the conditions were triggered. With the exception of when the keeper had the ball, Coventry were generally allowed possession in their third, with Taylor often dropping off allowing Mighten or Johnson to encourage a pass.

Coventry were playing with four defensive midfielders, which is great for having short outlets; passes into this area were the trigger for the Garibaldi press.

Led by Yates and Colback, Forest’s aim was to win the ball in this area of the pitch, or at least stop Coventry’s easiest route out of defence. This was a big problem for Coventry, because with Forest playing high up the pitch, when they won the ball here they were naturally in a good position to threaten. Therefore, The Sky Blues could not commit their wing-backs as far forward as they would have liked.

The precarious nature of Forest’s strategy was that when Coventry broke the press, they had lots of space to run into. However on the few occasions this happened Forest worked very hard to snuff out the danger.

This is how Forest won the midfield battle in he first half, however they did not have things all their own way.

Coventry’s strategy off the ball was to not allow Forest to play through the middle by crowding out this area of the pitch – O’Hare was dropping in to help their two central midfielders, and Coventry’s bank of four were able to narrow. This choked Forest’s passing options in central midfield, forcing more direct play. Taylor did get loose on two occasions from long balls, but Forest’s main success was direct from the turnover.

Although Forest did well winning the ball in midfield, the breakthrough came with Coventry more committed after breaking Forest’s press. The strategy of leaving men forward paid off as Johnson burst forward on the counter attack. Pace, guile and a precision pass from the youngster  handed Taylor an easy chance.

There has been a lot of criticism that once ahead Hughton changed things to protect the lead. Forest certainly stopped winning the ball in Coventry’s half as much – in the first half they did this once every 8.2 minutes, however after the break this dropped to once every 27 minutes, indicating a massive change in the flow of the game.

I had the impression myself on first viewing that Forest had switched to a 4-4-2 at some stage early in the second half in order to be more conservative. This made sense; the flow of the game indicated that another goal was likely one way or another – as Forest were leading, they didn’t want this. Dropping the wingers back into a block of four would have made them more solid.

Shrewder analysis shows that I was wrong. Forest were certainly still using a 4-2-3-1 up until the introduction of Cafu in the 88^th minute, and it appears instructions were still to play in the Coventry half, as midfielders continued to stay up the pitch, and the trigger point for the midfield press remained  in the Coventry half – none of which is indicative of unambitious play.

Nevertheless, Coventry gradually took over the game, and Forest’s success in their half became less and less frequent. After the game Hughton blamed this on the players running out of energy. We can certainly see signs of this.

There was a period in the first half when Forest were scrapping hard for the ball, making things very difficult for Coventry, but over the course of the game their opponents, visibly and statistically, outperformed them in almost every area.

The defensive contribution of the front four raises concerns that could be explained by tiredness. In the first half especially attackers were making a big effort to help defensively, but they were much less effective later on. They were either not in position to help (it’s feasible they were told to stay available), not making challenges or losing their duels.

Statistics support this. Defensive statistics are not the ultimate guide on how a player is doing off the ball – you can defend well without making a tackle or block for example. However, just two defensive contributions (according to whoscored.com and backed up by Sofascore.com) spread over four players (plus their subs) is certainly a red flag – especially for a team seeing little of the ball, and (according to some) told to focus on defending.

The whole team had expended a lot of energy. Playing high up the pitch and recovering on the turnover takes a big effort, but also they had played a lot of the game without the ball, and this is more tiring than playing possession based football.

So although when leading away from home players will naturally tend to be more conservative, I think we can explain the drop off in threat, and the increase in mistakes, with tiredness more than conservatism. In fact I don’t see evidence of a tactical switch until the 88^th minute, when Forest reverted to a 4-1-4-1.

As Coventry’s attacks became more frequent, they had two major breakthroughs in Forest’s full-back positions. In the 80th minute O’Hare brushed aside Gaetan Bong, as well as Colback – the latter poorly allowing himself to be nut-megged. The attacker’s shot created a game of Pinball in the Forest penalty area from which Coventry equalised.

Later the same player was loose in the right-back position – Scott McKenna had to come out to deal with him, followed by Yates who hacked down O’Hare. Chaos ensued from the free kick, and Coventry got their deserved winner.

Both of these goals were sloppy, with the defensive midfielders going into areas to help, but instead making errors that contributed to the goals. I find it difficult to be too critical, as these two players had toiled restlessly - there is an argument to say that over 90 ninety minutes they were just spread too thin.

There was no time, and even less energy to go for an equaliser, meaning The Reds opened their campaign with a concerning defeat to a team probably aiming for mid table.

Forest clearly aren’t the finished article – a disrupted pre-season and slow transfer window have ensured that. 

I liked the midfield press, and the young attackers look ready to terrorise teams – Mighten and Johnson drew four yellow cards as Coventry struggled to contain them – with a few good signings, and the retention of our existing talent, we’ve reason to be optimistic this campaign.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to:

Whoscored.com

Sofascore 

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