Nottingham Forest’s hot start to the Premier League season had already been attracting much attention heading into their match against Arsenal. Prior to this matchday’s fixtures, Forest were fifth in the league and easily on pace for their best league finish since the 1994-95 campaign when they finished third. This was even more impressive given the fact that the Midlands club finished 17th - just one spot above relegation - last season.
However, Forest’s match against Arsenal proved that for all their improvement in such a short span of time, they still have some way to go yet. Forest succumbed to a one-sided 3-0 loss at the Emirates Stadium; the gap in quality was obvious from opening kick-off. Bukayo Saka opened the scoring for the Gunners in the 15th minute; seven minutes after the break, Thomas Partey extended Arsenal’s lead to 2-0. To cap things off, substitute Ethan Nwaneri scored the Gunners’ third with just four minutes of regulation time remaining. It was the 17-year-old’s first career league goal in only his eighth appearance.
Earlier this season, the hype around Forest began to grow after picking up an impressive 1-0 away win against Liverpool. This would soon be followed by a three-match winning streak which elevated Forest to third place after 10 matchdays. However, in hindsight all three of those wins were somewhat deceiving because of the teams against which they were - Crystal Palace, Leicester City, and West Ham United; all three teams are in danger of being relegated this season.
Thus far, a great deal of the credit surrounding Forest’s strong start to the season has gone to head coach Nuno Espírito Santo. However, it might be beginning to appear that this praise might have been premature. While he has indeed presided over a clear improvement at the City Ground, this is where the true test of his coaching skills will come - in the quest to get Forest into a UEFA Conference League or perhaps even Europa League qualification berth.
To be fair to him, this is something which Espírito Santo has done before. In 2018-19, he took Wolverhampton Wanderers to a Europa League spot by finishing seventh in the league in the season directly after Wolves were promoted from the Championship. However, he hasn’t been able to match that level since, with his last two seasons at Molineux Stadium ending in 13th- and 10th-place finishes respectively prior to a brief, ill-fated stint at Tottenham Hotspur, then barely avoiding relegation with Forest last season. Could he have rediscovered his touch? More needs to be seen before anything can be rightly said about that.
There’s no question that many of Forest’s players have evidently taken a step up from last season. The likes of Chris Wood, Ola Aina, and Murillo have all been playing the best football of their respective careers as of late. However, once again, the question has to be raised: very few members of this Forest team have ever been involved in a serious chase for qualification for continental play. It certainly isn’t out of the question that as the season progresses and the pressure increases, they might just end up folding under the spotlight.
That being said, thus far Forest have easily outpaced every expectation of them and on the surface, even a top-10 finish would be well beyond what they might have expected at the beginning of the season. However, now that they’ve been somewhat established in this position for a while and with the race for qualification spots for next season’s European club tournaments being closer than it has ever been, Forest might want to reset their targets because they do have a realistic chance at them - but with these reset targets, performances like the one they just had against Arsenal certainly won’t cut it.
There are certainly opportunities to be had in the upcoming January transfer window; this arguably represents a key opportunity for Nottingham Forest if they’re to seriously contend for continental play next season. While Forest indeed seem like a completely different team to that of the two seasons since their Premier League return after more than two decades, there’s a chance for them to take the next step sooner rather than later - but can they prove that they can hang with the establishment?
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