Thoughts on
#NFFC tonight.
Do not take my words here as saying there is no blame on Dyche - but the attacking players do need to take a great deal of criticism tonight before we get on to coaching. Yes, we want the patterns of play to be better, and really we want to create fewer chances, of higher quality. But at the same time, players in key areas lacked composure and that's what was missing tonight.
35 shots is a staggering figure - Opta defined only 4 of them as big chances. Forest took NINETEEN shots from outside the box, only 3 of them were on target and at least 8 of them were blocked. No matter what way you dress it up, that's poor and it's mostly on the players making poor decisions, probably out of frustration.
Now, onto Dyche. Earlier today I posted an article on Dyche's reluctance to make in-game tactical changes - this reared its very ugly head again tonight.
Sangare & Anderson were both far too deep until around the 80th minute. This made it more difficult for Forest to recycle the ball high up. I can only think this is by design from the dugout, and if it isn't then Dyche has to spot this and tell the players to change it. The fact that this did change late on suggests it was part of the plan, which is very damning.
Forest started the game in a 4-2-3-1, and they finished the game in a 4-2-3-1, not changing it once. That's almost unforgivable. Perhaps Dyche is thinking "well we're controlling the game, the goal will come". I can get on board with that thinking for a short period of time in a game, but at some point you have to make the gamble.
In games like this I always think back to the promotion season just after Cooper was appointed. Forest were controlling a game at Barnsley away on a Tuesday night, yet he gambled, made an attacking tactical change. Forest go on to score 3 in the next 20 minutes and win the game comfortably. We needed this exact kind of decision making from the dugout tonight and in many other games.
The changes Dyche did make, once again came too late and once again were all like-for-like. McAtee, a player who has spent the majority of his career playing and training with a team that find themselves in these kind of games all the time, who also played brilliantly in his last appearance, doesn't see the pitch. For me it's unforgivable.
Ndoye, bereft of confidence, comes on. Not long afterward, he moves him to his unfavoured wing, and switches Hutchinson to his unfavoured wing too in a game where at least he was getting into decent positions, just not finding that final pass or carry. This killed Forest down both wings in the closing stages.
Aina was clearly gassed after around an hour - he should never have seen the end of this game and was hesitant to go forward anyway. I cannot fathom why Sangare saw the end of the game, there was no need for two deep midfielders - I'm not a huge fan of dropping Gibbs-White back deeper but tonight was a game where you could definitely get away with it.
Forest on another night win this game 2 or 3 nil - but unfortunately the fact is they didn't, and almost who touched grass on the pitch or in the technical area deserves some stick tonight. On the bright side though, Forest can't ruin our weekend! 😀