Written by BillyTheKid
Cherries Unbeaten Against Forest In Premier League
AFCB’s visit to Selhurst Park resulted in an exciting and for a change, a high scoring 3-3 draw, the most goals scored against each other since the 2018-19 season when Palace won 5-3. The Cherries remain unbeaten in the Premier League after the last seven games. Our next match is on Sunday at Dean Court at 2 pm against Nottingham Forest, the game is live on Sky.
AFC Bournemouth v Nottingham Forest
AFCB Win
AFCB Win
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Draw
Draw
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Forest Win
Forest Win
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Forest, who had a poor start to the Premier League season, resulting in two managers losing their jobs after only 8 league games. Nuno Espírito Santo had been their manager since December 2023, when Forest finished in 17th place. In the first full season 2024-25, they finished in 7th place. AFCB have an unbeaten record in the Premier League in games home and away against Nottingham Forest.
This season, after only 3 league games, two at home, which included an opening day 3-1 win against Brentford and a 0-3 defeat against West Ham and only one away game, a 1-1 draw against Crystal Palace, Nuno was sacked. His replacement was the former Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou.
Postecoglou was the second manager to be sacked after only 5 league games in charge at Nottingham Forest, which included a 3-0 away loss against Arsenal and a 1-1 draw at Burnley. 0-1 home defeat against Sunderland, followed by a 2-0 defeat at Newcastle. His last game was the 0-3 home loss to Chelsea. His 39 days as the Forest manager are the shortest for a permanent manager in Premier League history since Les Reed’s 41 days at Charlton in 2006.
Sean Dyche, who was sacked by Everton in January, will be their third manager this season. His last game in charge for Everton was their away defeat at Dean Court, which finished 1-0. Andoni Iraola has a good record against Sean Dyche, winning three of the four games against Everton. Dyche’s Everton team won the first match.
The last time Forest visited Dean Court was in January, when they were third in the table. They were trounced 5-0, which was the Cherries’ biggest league win last season. It included a Dango Ouattara hat-trick. The 11,228 in attendance only saw one goal in the first half, which was scored by Justin Kluivert. The Ouattara hat-trick over 32 minutes and an injury-time goal from Antoine Semenyo made it 5-0.
In our home games against Forest, AFCB have W 7, D 3, L 2.
All competitions, AFCB have W 10, D 8, L 6.
AFCB Team News
David Brooks and Evanilson could be missing through injury.
AFCB Player To Watch
After his performance against Crystal Palace, I think young Eli Kroupi will get another start with Evanilson a very big doubt for this game. The 19-year-old has scored 3 goals in his last two games, has a knack for being in the right spot at the right time. Antoine Semenyo, in his present form, is another to watch.
Nottingham Forest Team News
They signed a large number of players during the Summer and a large number left. On their injury front, Ola Aina is out.
Nottingham Forest Player To Watch
Morgan Gibbs-White has been a consistently good player for them. Chris Wood, who scored 20 league goals last season, had a brace in Forest’s opening game, but hasn’t scored since, so based on last season, he will still be a threat.
The Referee
Sam Barrott is in charge of this game. We had him away against Crystal Palace last season.
Matt Stevenson added…
I’ve looked at the last 4 league games for N Forest. They had two home games (Sunderland and Chelsea) and two away games (Burnley and Newcastle). N Forest have gained 1 point, although the underlying stats suggest they deserved more as the opposition only had the higher xG in 1 of the 4 games (Newcastle). The xG value for goals scored is 5.43, compared with 1 actual goal, so the team has been markedly underperforming when taking chances. N Forest have conceded 7 goals with xGc estimating 7.63 goals.
Goals Xg.jpg
N Forest have had 1 goal scorers (Williams) with no assists credited.
The average positions of the starting line-ups are below, although given the change in manager, with outwardly a polar opposite approach, these may be redundant. The formations seemed to be changing by the game, with a high defensive line at Burnley, more attacking at home to Sunderland, very defensive at Newcastle and a mish-mash against Chelsea, where players must have been rotating positions.
Av Pos.jpg
The following plot compares summary stats of N Forest and AFCB over the last 4 games.
N Forest have had more attempts, slightly more big chances and xG, although AFCB have recorded many more goals (7 vs 1). AFCB have better defensive stats, even after the barrage from C Palace, with fewer goal attempts, and big chances conceded, with xGc also marginally favouring Bournemouth. We have conceded 1 less goal. We have made fewer errors leading to fewer chances than N Forest (whose 6 mistakes are relatively high).
Comparison.png
N Forest have had slightly more possession and shade pass completion percentages. The proportion of chances (for and against) from set pieces are similar between the two teams.
Percentages.png
Your say…
red_house said…
He’ll park the bus and the champions of Europe will be singing all the way home about the day they got a point at mighty Bournemouth. We’ll all fall asleep at the game before a massive argument breaks out on here later about how to beat a low block. – To join the conversation, click here.