Unless you're a fan of one of the big clubs that needed a late Nottingham Forest collapse to help mask your own team's piss-poor season (we're looking at you, Man City and Chelsea), you have to feel for the Trees. Forest maintained its over-performing underdog act for so long and so admirably this year, and it was just starting to look like the team might avoid the Icarian fate that usually befalls the (relatively) low-spending high fliers of any given Premier League season. Alas, with Sunday's 2-2 draw against Leicester City, it appears that the wax is running, the feathers are falling out, and Forest has entered what could be a tailspin.
No one could really say it's surprising that the Tricky Trees have fallen off the pace that had them soaring in the Champions League places. Over the course of 38 matches, it's hard for the talent of the big boys, the health of your overachievers, and the god of regression not to eventually catch up with even the most brave and resilient upstarts. In Forest's case, rivals like Man City, Newcastle United, and Chelsea have started to hit some better form entering the final stretch, key Reds like Callum Hudson-Odoi and Murillo have picked up untimely injuries, and Chris Wood, the big galoot who could not stop scoring goals (he has 20), has more or less stopped scoring goals (two in his last nine games). As such, the Trees have picked up just five points from their last six matches, which has seen them drop from a comfortable third place down to seventh.
Despite the veneer of objectivity and scientific rigor, it would be simplistic to view Forest's slide over the last couple months as a mere regression to the mean. There are more substantive reasons why Forest might have been "over-performing" its expected goals numbers earlier this season, and why it is now failing to maintain that hot streak. The most straightforward example is that opponents, with nearly an entire season's worth of tape on the Trees' playing style, have started to approach them differently, and Forest hasn't been able to adjust.
Forest has been probably the deepest-sitting, most direct-attacking, most possession-shy team in the league. It would be easy to characterize this style as "defensive," "negative," or "reactive," but if you're willing to question the assumptions behind those facile descriptors, you'll find that there's something much more interesting and intentional going on. The strongest line on Forest's roster is its fearsome attacking midfield, made up of Morgan Gibbs-White, Hudson-Odoi, and Anthony Elanga. Those three are demons when offered space to run into and disjointed defenses to run at. Defenders struggle to keep up with the trio's combination of speed, fluid movement, and technical accuracy in the open field. Plant in front of them a human redwood like Wood, who thrives when he can attack the penalty spot and use his height and strength and one- and two-touch finishing to thump shots towards the goal, and you have the makings of a formidable attack. So while sitting so deep definitely helps Forest protect its own penalty area, the decision to lie low and cede possession to the opponent is if anything a proactive choice that provides the team's best players—its attackers—ideal conditions for success.
It's no coincidence that Forest's season average of 40.9 percent possession is the third-lowest in the Prem. Likewise, it's no coincidence that in the Trees' last three matches, in which they've gone winless against teams you'd have expected them to beat, they've had more than half of the possession in every game. Opponents have learned to counteract Forest's counter-attacking style by essentially playing Forest the way Forest likes to play other teams. Without big spaces to spring into, Forest's attackers are far less effective, and with bigger spaces to defend and fewer numbers to do so, their defense isn't quite as impermeable. The Trees might've been able to overcome this with difference-making talents like Hudson-Odoi and Murillo out there, but without them, they're just another middling team in an unforgiving league.
Especially in a sport like soccer, where money reigns and the gaps in spending power are often chasmic, seasons have to be judged not just on wins and trophies but on expectations. In that sense, Forest's season is an unquestionable triumph. Disappointing though it might have been, the Leicester draw meant the Trees guaranteed themselves European competition next season, whether that be the Champions, Europa, or Conference Leagues. For a team that finished 17th last year, qualifying for a continental tournament by damn near inverting its league position from one season to the next is an amazing feat. And yet, coming so close to nabbing a Champions League spot only to fumble it away in the final weeks has to be immensely frustrating. You could see some of those frustrations boiling over at the end of Sunday's game, when Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis came out onto the pitch and had a heated exchange with manager Nuno Espírito Santos, due to an unfortunate late-game miscommunication which saw Forest use up its last substitution window right as Taiwo Awoniyi realized he couldn't continue playing. It was an ugly moment from the infamously ... let's say "over-committed" owner, but the emotions themselves were understandable.
With two games remaining in the season and only one point out of fifth place, Forest's Champions League dream isn't entirely over, especially not when the last match is against fellow top-five candidate Chelsea. But Sunday's draw was a major blow for the Trees' chances of ending its magical season with a real miracle. Coming up just short has to sting, especially when the most crushing result came at the hands of local rivals Leicester, whose own magical run in 2016 remains the standard that underdogs like Forest aspire to and, more often than not, fail to see through to the end.
