Nottingham Forest v Aston Villa Pre-Match Thread

[Jockey Randall]

As a manager you spend the season getting to know what your best team is. When you reach the semi final of a European competition you play that best team. You don’t faff about trying to counter the threats of an inferior team. Let them counter us.

The issue is that he is unable to play his best team, if Onana is out then that will be 2 of his best X1 not available.
That is a real problem.

Agreed. After Saturday I was thinking it's clearly a massive issue when we have to chuck out makeshift midfields so had a look at what that difference looks like.

Over the last two seasons when two of Tielemans, Onana and Kamara start in midfield we've won around 61% of the league games which is clearly top 4 standard.

When two of those players are missing we plummet down to a 26% win rate. We basically go from being a top 4 team to a bottom 6 standard team depending on who is available in central midfield. If he's out I'd snap your hand off for a draw and hope he's back for the VP leg.

[ChicagoLion]

As a manager you spend the season getting to know what your best team is. When you reach the semi final of a European competition you play that best team. You don’t faff about trying to counter the threats of an inferior team. Let them counter us.

The issue is that he is unable to play his best team, if Onana is out then that will be 2 of his best X1 not available.
That is a real problem.

Agreed. After Saturday I was thinking it's clearly a massive issue when we have to chuck out makeshift midfields so had a look at what that difference looks like.

Over the last two seasons when two of Tielemans, Onana and Kamara start in midfield we've won around 61% of the league games which is clearly top 4 standard.

When two of those players are missing we plummet down to a 26% win rate. We basically go from being a top 4 team to a bottom 6 standard team depending on who is available in central midfield. If he's out I'd snap your hand off for a draw and hope he's back for the VP leg.

I didn’t realise it was that stark, we struggled the whole period without Kamara and Tielemens and Emery chose to carry on playing the same system without them( the results show it didn’t work).
Just hope that Onana is fit or Emery does something to compensate.

[Grumpy]

Just thought I’d swing by and post a rare comment…

I can’t relax, focus, work or do anything really other than SHIT myself about the next week or so.

If we go full Villa and exit the cup then fail to get top five I might talk a walk into the sea.

Night night

[KingstandingVilla]

As a manager you spend the season getting to know what your best team is. When you reach the semi final of a European competition you play that best team. You don’t faff about trying to counter the threats of an inferior team. Let them counter us.

The issue is that he is unable to play his best team, if Onana is out then that will be 2 of his best X1 not available.
That is a real problem.

Agreed. After Saturday I was thinking it's clearly a massive issue when we have to chuck out makeshift midfields so had a look at what that difference looks like.

Over the last two seasons when two of Tielemans, Onana and Kamara start in midfield we've won around 61% of the league games which is clearly top 4 standard.

When two of those players are missing we plummet down to a 26% win rate. We basically go from being a top 4 team to a bottom 6 standard team depending on who is available in central midfield. If he's out I'd snap your hand off for a draw and hope he's back for the VP leg.

I didn’t realise it was that stark, we struggled the whole period without Kamara and Tielemens and Emery chose to carry on playing the same system without them( the results show it didn’t work).
Just hope that Onana is fit or Emery does something to compensate.

Lindelof as a 6 maybe.?

[Bent Neilsens Screamer]

👆Im not sure why we’d do some crazy shit like that in such an important game having not really done it at all save for the odd 10 minutes when he first joined.

[olaftab]

Just thought I’d swing by and post a rare comment…

I can’t relax, focus, work or do anything really other than SHIT myself about the next week or so.

If we go full Villa and exit the cup then fail to get top five I might talk a walk into the sea.

Night night

You are unnecessarily grumpy.

[eamonn]

Portuguese ref. Reffed wins over Bologna and away in at Club Brugge.

Great, he'll be cracking jokes with Pereira in Portuguese pre-match and a flicker of conscious bias will set-in when he awards Forest free-kicks for 50/50 duels.

[ChicagoLion]

As a manager you spend the season getting to know what your best team is. When you reach the semi final of a European competition you play that best team. You don’t faff about trying to counter the threats of an inferior team. Let them counter us.

The issue is that he is unable to play his best team, if Onana is out then that will be 2 of his best X1 not available.
That is a real problem.

Agreed. After Saturday I was thinking it's clearly a massive issue when we have to chuck out makeshift midfields so had a look at what that difference looks like.

Over the last two seasons when two of Tielemans, Onana and Kamara start in midfield we've won around 61% of the league games which is clearly top 4 standard.

When two of those players are missing we plummet down to a 26% win rate. We basically go from being a top 4 team to a bottom 6 standard team depending on who is available in central midfield. If he's out I'd snap your hand off for a draw and hope he's back for the VP leg.

I didn’t realise it was that stark, we struggled the whole period without Kamara and Tielemens and Emery chose to carry on playing the same system without them( the results show it didn’t work).
Just hope that Onana is fit or Emery does something to compensate.

Lindelof as a 6 maybe.?

Yes, but I bet he won’t.
Somehow getting the best combination of

SJM Luiz Rogers Buendia Tielemens behind Watkins.
Avoiding Sancho or Bailey.

[ROBBO]

Please Unai no Bailey it's like putting up a white flag.

[brontebilly]

👆Im not sure why we’d do some crazy shit like that in such an important game having not really done it at all save for the odd 10 minutes when he first joined.

Not even sure McLeish would be considering some of the selections put up here, Lindelof or Cash in midfield! Even putting McGinn into the middle if Onana is out next to Luiz or Tielemans, can see the logic. But McGinn was our best player at Forest only a few weeks ago on the right. Move him inside and one of Bailey or Sancho are in. That's not good. Williams would bully the pair of them.

Create the same amount of chances against them like we did a few weeks ago and we will win comfortably.

[Jockey Randall]

If Onana is out, as much as I love Bogarde for his versatility I'm not sure I'd want him starting away from home in a game like this. Hate taking McGinn from right wing as well but I'd prefer to see him next to Tielemans out of all the options. Sancho right wing and Buendia left is the way I'd go.

2nd choice would probably be Doug Luiz alongside Tielemans and keep McGinn RW.

[paul_e]

As do I - when you’re away you’re always likely to come under some pressure. But make no mistake we had plenty of chances to comfortably win that game. Now, if we’re equally profligate then it’s obviously going to be a problem, but in no way did Forest dominate that game.

The biggest problem is the idea that 3 shots from 20m+ 'could have been a hattrick' if a player pulls off 3-4 of those in a season it's impressive. Even the one he scored probably gets saved by Emi. That said we did let him have too much space to cut in onto his stronger foot, which seems like an odd detail for Emery to have missed given he's better coming inside than trying to go down the wing and cross it.

[Brend'Watkins]

I’ve been informed that Onana wasn’t injured at the weekend. He was sick. Anybody else heard this?

[achilles]

Can’t see Unai deviating from his tried and tested team and formation:

              Martinez
Cash       Konsa   Torres     Digne
    Onana/Bogarde        Tielemans
McGinn.   Buendia   Rogers
               Watkins

The only change to that is that he might bring Mings in for Torres to combat Woods?

[Ozzjim]

We need to get back to VP no more than 1 down.

How we do that I expect will be a nervy, horrible watch.