Tactical review: August

Forest had a nightmare first month of the season, finding themselves bottom of The Championship after earning just one point from their first five league games.

It has been well documented that Forest’s preparations for the season have been poor, for both avoidable and unavoidable reasons.

Cancelled friendlies and interrupted training due to Covid-19 appear to have directly effected the first loss of the season, against Coventry City – you can read my match report here. The Reds faded badly from a good start, fatigue helping The Sky Blues to immediately crank up the pressure on Hughton by coming from behind to win 2-1.

During this game we also noticed the first signs of the inadequacy of the Forest squad in key areas undermining the manager’s tactics, and his failure to discover a solution – this has been the dominant feature of the first month of the season.

11 players left the City Ground during the summer, either released or returning to their parent clubs – these players made up 42% of Forest’s league starts last season – an unusually high amount of gaps in the team-sheet that needed filling.

Despite the clear need for players, the only new arrivals available in the league before the Derby game were Ethan Horvath, Philip Zinckernagel and Jordi Osei-Tutu, leaving the shortfall to be filled by youth players, and others previously decided to be not good enough for the first team.

The full-back positions have been most compromised by this policy. Against Coventry Forest started with Gaetan Bong (previously told to find a new club) and Jordan Gabriel (transfer to Blackpool only delayed due to Forest lacking right-backs).

These two areas of the pitch were exactly where Forest were the most vulnerable due to their system. It is no coincidence that this is where tactical problems have come from.

Coventry created their goals in these areas. Central midfielders Jack Colback and Ryan Yates had been working hard during this game, but were spread too thin – Forest were instructed to employ a high midfield press in Coventry’s half, but also the central midfielders had to get back and help Bong and Gabriel. Overstretched and fatigued, Yates and Colback made errors contributing to Forest’s downfall, but it was the full-back area that had become the problem..

The Forest full-back positions continued to be very much makeshift for the rest of August’s league games – at left back we’ve seen Osei-Tutu and Gabriel deputise for Bong during his ridiculous suspension, both looking uncomfortable on that side of the pitch, and at right back Gabriel has done reasonably well, helped out by the fabulous, but not quite ready, youth player Finley Back.

Forest play in a 4-2-3-1 system – the traditional weakness of this formation in the areas just in front of the full-backs, where space naturally appears unless the wingers drop back when out of possession. But Forest’s wingers have had instructions to stay high up the pitch when possible, often allowing easy routes to the edge of the Forest defence out wide.

Opposition sides have been targeting these areas, forcing the uncomfortable full-backs into awkward decisions with good movement and overloads.

The David Brooks goal for Bournemouth is a great example of Forest being cut apart in this area, but Stoke and Derby were clearly focusing on this too, while Blackburn had a lot of success with their players directly running through Forest’s full-back areas with the ball.

Lack of confidence in the full-backs has also effected Forest going forward – it appears to me that the full-backs have been told to be more conservative than you would ideally like, in order to maintain some defensive solidity.

We’ve seen over the past year that Hughton’s Forest sides suffer from a lack of creative movement. A great way to solve this is by having the full-backs make forward runs to create overloads, something not happening enough this season.

Indeed, whenever a full-back has found himself in the opposition half Forest have looked dangerous. I believe Hughton wants them to get forward – the acquisition of Osei-Tutu was a clear indication of that, as he is a very attacking player. This has only been reinforced by the (late) additions of Djed Spence, Mohamed Drager and Max Lowe, all of whom have played in midfield or at least fit the theory.

Another issue when in possession has been the lack of regular outlets in central midfield. This area of the pitch has been lambasted in some sections of the support for being too defensive, and there is some truth to this gripe.

Again, the club was late in bringing in a satisfactory partner for Ryan Yates. Yates, despite the grumbles of some, will continue in the Forest midfield due to the defensive quality he produces. However he is not the type of player to control the game in possession.

James Garner has been brought in to do this, but he missed the first four games and the lack of a ball-playing midfielder in this area made it difficult to play short through the middle. The club can perhaps be forgiven for waiting for the Manchester United man instead of getting somebody else, but it has contributed to the poor start.

How the 4-2-3-1 system has interacted with opposition tactics has also made it hard to play through midfield. Most of our opponents have pushed up players onto Forest’s defensive midfielders in an effort to force direct balls, but Coventry and Stoke found flooding the midfield particularly easy because their formations out of possession crowd this area.

This has been forcing Forest to play longer balls, something that they are not well suited to do. Time after time we have seen the likes of Lyle Taylor, Lewis Grabban and Alex Mighten compete with two or three defenders, they almost always lose out because this isn’t their game.

This brings us back to recruitment. I am amazed that Hughton (or the club, whichever are responsible for bringing players in) has not brought in a target man. The manager clearly does not want to rely on long ball football, however the fact that Forest can’t do it makes it more likely. Opponents are deliberately forcing this.

Looking back at the teams Hughton has been successful with in the past, a target man has always been a key weapon – at Newcastle he had Andy Carroll. At Birmingham it was the Serbian skyscraper Nikola Zigic. His Norwich team contained former Forest man and now professional wrestler Grant Holt, and at Brighton he had several forwards who specialised at receiving direct play, such as Tomer Hemed, Bobby Zamora and Glenn Murray.

Unlike the previous manager Sabri Lamouchi, Hughton teams in possession have never relied on choreographed movement, instead they like to stretch teams with presence ahead of the ball, and have the wide men hug the by-line. He just doesn’t have the players at Forest, that flexibility. That is why they have struggled to score goals.

Off the field matters is not the forte of this blog, I focus on the football, however the recruitment strategy has clearly affected the football. The club appear to have gambled on muddling through August without filling the gaps, weakening an already inadequate squad. The gamble has not paid off – Forest have given the current play-off teams a 9-10 point head start.

Results should pick up – options in the full-back positions, and the type of players they are, will help Forest come forward with the ball, as will the addition of Garner.

We could even see The Reds switch to a three man defence – the 3-4-2-1 type of system is currently being used very successfully in The Championship because it covers the defensive territory very efficiently, but it is a less aggressive strategy and Forest fans seem to want attacking football.

Either way it seems that the extenuating circumstances have given Hughton an extra chance that he might not have expected. He’ll have to find a way to make this work in the next few games or Forest will once again be starting from scratch with a new manager.

You can read my players of the month here.