What does Santo need to do to revive Nottingham?

Having only won one victory after 13 matches, the home team at City Ground decided to change their generals to change their fortunes.

After losing 6 of the last 8 matches and falling to 17th place, Nottingham Forest decided to part ways with coach Steve Cooper. The City Ground team chose Nuno Espirito Santo to sit in the hot seat with a 2 and a half year contract.

The Portuguese strategist immediately had to solve a mountain of challenges to help Nottingham improve its rankings. According to Opta, the rate of “Tricky Trees” saying goodbye to the Premier League after 38 rounds is about 30%.

Streamline the squad

Since returning to the Premier League, Nottingham Forest has spent nearly 320 million pounds to recruit new recruits. Last summer, they signed 29 players for a fee of more than £150 million – more than Barcelona, Real Madrid or Paris Saint-Germain spent in the same transfer window.

Spending tons of money means Steve Cooper has a Premier League-quality squad to compete with, but inconsistency in personnel selection has harmed Nottingham. In the 2022/23 Premier League alone, Nottingham Forest uses 30 different starting players – the 2nd highest of all teams in the Premier League. This season, the club’s number of rotating personnel is at 27 – the most in the tournament.

The fact that the player who scored the decisive goal in the World Cup final and the Europa League final last season, Gonzalo Montiel, is only considered the fourth choice in the right back position, raises instability in the way Nottingham uses people. Forest. Or even signing Chris Wood and Divock Origi in case both of these two strikers don’t have many opportunities even when Taiwo Awoniyi is injured is also a big question mark.

Improved set-piece situations

Nottingham Forest scored 10 goals from set-piece situations in the 2022/23 season, including 3 Premier League goals from throw-ins. Goals in fixed situations accounted for 34.2% of the home team’s total goals at The City Ground last season and were an indispensable factor for them to stay in the Premier League. But so far this season, no team has scored fewer set goals in the top flight than Nottingham – on par with Crystal Palace and Burnley.

Nottingham Forest have technical players like Morgan Gibbs-White to provide quality crosses into the opposition’s penalty area. They have the presence of physically strong players such as Willy-Arnaud Boly, Moussa Niakhate, Ibrahim Sangare, Taiwo Awoniyi and Chris Wood to be at the receiving end of dead ball situations.

According to statistics, Nottingham Forest have had 67 chances from set-piece situations this season – the 7th most in the Premier League – and created 4.54 expected goals (xG). The problem of “Tricky Trees” lies in the ability to convert goals. The club also recognized the need to improve dead ball, having appointed England U19 team coach Simon Rusk as permanent coach earlier this month.

Set-piece situations are always important for Nuno. Under the 49-year-old strategist, Wolves are famous as “dead ball hunters” in the Premier League. And now, Nottingham has even more reason to hope for the ability to upgrade tactics from former captain Al Ittihad.

Upgrade goalkeeper

As a result of negotiations with Arsenal and Benfica in the summer, Matt Turner and Odysseas Vlachodimos arrived at The City Ground but both were disappointing. After mistakes in last week’s loss to Tottenham, only Wes Foderingham (3) has made more errors leading to goals in the Premier League this season than Turner (2).

Based on the quality and location of shots on target Premier League goalkeepers have faced this season, both Turner and Vlachodimos rank among the seven worst goalkeepers in the division. Turner has conceded 1.8 more goals than he has faced shots on target. While Vlachodimos exceeded its target by 4.1 units.

The goalkeepers of all teams in the bottom 5 clubs currently have a positive difference, showing that they are making amazing saves and performing much better than the two Nottingham Forest goalkeepers. . For example, Luton Town’s Thomas Kaminski has saved 4.5 goals – the third highest ratio in the Premier League. Statistics do not lie and Nuno needs to consider solving the problem early in the home team’s wooden frame.