League leaders Arsenal travel to the City Ground to take on relegation-threatened Nottingham Forest in the Premier League on Saturday evening.
Forest were dumped out of the FA Cup by Championship side Wrexham in a penalty shoot-out, which became their fifth defeat in six games across all competitions.
Sean Dyche’s side earned a morale-boosting 2-1 victory at fellow relegation-threatened West Ham United last time out in the Premier League.
[The Gunners secured a hard-fought 3-2 victory over Chelsea](https://thesportstoday.com/2026/01/14/advantage-arsenal-after-garnacho-keeps-chelseas-carabao-cup-hopes-alive/) in Wednesday’s Carabao Cup semi-final first-leg clash at Stamford Bridge.
Mikel Arteta’s side began their [FA Cup campaign with a thumping 4-1 victory over Portsmouth](https://thesportstoday.com/2026/01/11/martinelli-hits-hat-trick-at-portsmouth-as-arsenal-progress-to-the-fourth-round-of-the-fa-cup/) last weekend. However, Arsenal were held to a goalless draw by reigning champions Liverpool in their last Premier League outing.
**Match preview**
Nottingham Forest have lost eight of their last 10 Premier League games against Arsenal, though both exceptions have come at the City Ground since their return to the division in 2022 (1-0 in May 2023, 0-0 in February 2025).
Arsenal have kept a clean sheet in each of their last three Premier League games against Nottingham Forest, their longest run of league shutouts against the Tricky Trees.
Only West Ham (8) and Wolves (8) have lost more Premier League home games this season than Nottingham Forest (6). It’s the Tricky Trees’ joint-most defeats in their opening 10 home matches of a league campaign, while only in 1908/09 have they ever lost as many as seven of their first 11.
The Tricky Trees have lost six of their 10 Premier League home games this season (W3 D1), already one more than they lost at the City Ground in the whole of last season (W9 D5 L5). Forest have also conceded more home goals this term (17) than in 2024/25 (16).
The Gunners drew 0-0 with Liverpool in their last Premier League game. Since the start of 2022/23, they’ve only failed to score in consecutive league games on two occasions, though both times the second game came away against Nottingham Forest (May 2023, February 2025).
Forest manager Sean Dyche has never seen his sides score more than once in a Premier League game against Arsenal, netting eight goals in 19 meetings. He’s also won just two of these 19 games, with Burnley in December 2020 and Everton in February 2023.
Morgan Gibbs-White has scored in his last two Premier League games and is Nottingham Forest’s highest league scorer this season with five goals. He’s also just one goal or assist away from becoming the first Forest player to register 50 goal involvements in the Premier League (22 goals, 27 assists).
**Team news**
**Nottingham Forest**
Oleksandr Zinchenko can’t face his parent club, so he is unavailable for this fixture.
While Chris Wood and John Victor are sidelined with injuries.
**Arsenal**
Piero Hincapie, Riccardo Calafiori, Cristhian Mosquera and Max Dowman are unavailable for the visitors with injuries.
**Predicted line-ups**
**Nottingham Forest**: Mats Selz, Ola Aina, Nikola Milenkovic, Murillo, Neco Williams, Nicolás Domínguez, Elliot Anderson, Morgan Gibbs-White, Omari Hutchinson, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Igor Jesus.
**Arsenal**: David Raya, Jurriën Timber, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Martín Zubimendi, Declan Rice, Martin Ødegaard, Bukayo Saka, Leandro Trossard, Viktor Gyökeres.