Can Ruben Amorim’s side keep building momentum at the City Ground? We look ahead to Saturday’s Premier League clash with our Nottingham Forest vs Manchester United prediction and preview.
Nottingham Forest vs Man Utd: The Key Stats
Nottingham Forest narrowly edged out Manchester United in 38.1% of pre-match simulations by the Opta supercomputer.
Forest have lost six of their last seven Premier League matches, including the last four in a row without scoring.
Only Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah have more Premier League goal involvements in 2025 than Bryan Mbeumo.
Ruben Amorim will hope to keep the good times rolling as an in-form Manchester United head to struggling Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
United backed up their impressive scalp of Liverpool at Anfield with a 4-2 victory over Brighton & Hove Albion last Saturday, making it three straight Premier League wins for the first time in Amorim’s tenure.
Including their 2-0 win over Sunderland, this marks United’s best winning run in a single season since a streak of four in February 2024. The Red Devils were one of just three sides to win 100% of their games in October, along with Arsenal and Aston Villa, and have jumped up to sixth in the table.
In fact, only leaders Arsenal (16) have picked up more Premier League points than United from Matchday 3 onwards (15 – W5 L2). Amorim’s side are also the leading scorers in the division in that time (14) after smashing four past Brighton last time out.
Bryan Mbeumo was twice on target, along with a deflected strike from Casemiro and a well-taken opener for Matheus Cunha, as United cooled any hopes of a late Brighton fightback.
Cunha’s first top-flight goal for United displayed all the quality that saw Amorim so keen to sign the Brazilian. His seven goals from outside the box since the start of last season make up more than any other Premier League player in all competitions.
More concerningly for Forest, who sit 18th, Cunha has been involved in seven goals in his last four appearances against teams starting the day in the relegation zone (3 goals, 4 assists). All those involvements came for former club Wolves between April 2024 and April 2025.
Mbeumo has also either scored or assisted in each of his last three league outings for United (3 goals, 1 assist). On top of that, only Erling Haaland (19 goals, 3 assists) and Mohamed Salah (15 goals, 7 assists) have been involved in more Premier League goals in 2025 than Mbeumo (14 goals, 6 assists).
Bryan Mbeumo goal involvements 2025
It is a completely different story for Forest, whose first Premier League outing under new boss Sean Dyche ended in a timid 2-0 defeat away to Bournemouth last weekend.
Optimism had built after Dyche’s first game after replacing Ange Postecoglou ended in a 2-0 victory over Porto in the UEFA Europa League, but his new side were then well off the pace in a one-sided contest at the Vitality Stadium.
Only Morgan Gibbs-White went close to scoring against Bournemouth, as Forest played 16.9% of their passes long in a completely contrasting style to the same metric under Postecoglou (8.5%).
Underlining the change in tactics, goalkeeper Matz Sels played 25 long passes versus Bournemouth, the most by a Forest player in a game this season.
Matz Sels pass map v Bournemouth 2025-26
That change in plan could not stop Forest falling to a sixth defeat from their last seven Premier League matches (D1), including four losses in a row without scoring. They have not lost five in a row since October 2022, while Forest last suffered five league defeats in a row without a goal back in January 2004 in the Championship.
Their lack of clinical edge, of course, is the main concern. Forest scored three goals from seven first-half shots in their opening Premier League win against Brentford (43% conversion), but in their 17 halves of football since then, they have scored just two goals from 93 shots (2%).
Dyche has been trusted to turn a flailing ship around, but he has seen his teams fail to score in 10 of his last 14 Premier League games in charge (9/13 with Everton, 1/1 with Forest).
That poor scoring record is in keeping with his career, however, and by no means suggests a turnaround is imminent. Among managers to take charge of 150+ matches in the competition’s history, Dyche has the lowest goals-per-game rate – 0.97 per game (323 goals in 334 games).
Dyche will hope Chris Wood can return to share the attacking burden, along with a comeback for loanee Oleksandr Zinchenko. Ola Aina will not feature until early next year, however.
Meanwhile, Amorim’s medical team will run the rule over Harry Maguire late before Saturday’s contest, while Lisandro Martínez has returned to training after a long-term knee issue, though this game will come too soon for him.
Nottingham Forest vs Man Utd Head-to-Head
Anthony Elanga scored the winner in this fixture last season, firing home after five minutes for a 1-0 Forest win that sealed a league double over United.
Nott'm Forest v Man Utd stats 2024-25
Indeed, Forest have won their last three league games against United, but have not managed four consecutive wins against the Red Devils since 1910.
United have lost their last two league games at the City Ground, but have not lost three in a row away to Forest since doing so between August 1965 and October 1967.
Nottingham Forest vs Man Utd Prediction
The Opta supercomputer appears torn on Saturday’s clash, with a tight encounter predicted at the City Ground.
Despite Forest’s recent struggles, they came out on top in 38.1% of 10,000 pre-match simulations, while the draw was rated at 26.5%.
United hold a 35.4% chance of claiming all three points and making it four straight Premier League wins.
Nottingham Forest v Man Utd Opta prediction 2025-26
Nottingham Forest vs Man Utd Predicted Lineups
Nottingham Forest: Matz Sels, Nicolò Savona, Nikola Milenkovic, Murillo, Neco Williams, Douglas Luiz, Elliot Anderson, Dan Ndoye, Morgan Gibbs-White, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Igor Jesus.
Head coach: Sean Dyche
Manchester United: Altay Bayindir, Leny Yoro, Matthijs de Ligt, Luke Shaw, Casemiro, Bruno Fernandes, Amad Diallo, Diogo Dalot, Bryan Mbeumo, Matheus Cunha, Benjamin Sesko.
Head coach: Ruben Amorim
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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