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Can Nottingham Forest replicate Leicester City’s Premier League fairytale?

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Can Nottingham Forest replicate Leicester City’s Premier League fairytale?
Can Nottingham Forest replicate Leicester City’s Premier League fairytale?

New Delhi: Not a long time ago, Leicester City shocked the world by winning the Premier League title. Similarly, Nottingham Forest appears poised to replicate that achievement this season. Second in the standings, they have the joint second-best defence in the division and hold the most clean sheets. The Tricky Trees started the season as surprise packages, but they no longer seem the same. 

Nuno Espirito Santo’s team drew with Liverpool, matching their club record of seven consecutive top-flight victories established in 1992. This performance marks them as genuine title contenders and positions them in line for European competition once more.

Nottingham Forest secured Premier League promotion in 2022 after 23 long years. The club brought in a record 21 players in the transfer market and narrowly escaped relegation. In the last season, the club finished 17th, having had four points deducted for breaching profit and sustainability rules. Their turbulent season was marked by a controversial social media post, refereeing rows, VAR complaints, and a managerial change. 

When Nottingham Forest last won the Premier League?

In the current campaign, the club has turned the tables around, pushing itself for a European place. Nottingham Forest were the champions of the Football League First Division in 1977-78 but haven’t won the trophy in the Premier League era. 

A year after their promotion to the top tier of English football, Nottingham Forest, led by Brian Clough, finished the season seven points ahead of second-placed Liverpool. This explosive season for the Tricky Trees ended with a record of 25 wins, 14 draws, and only three losses. They boasted the highest goals scored at 69 while conceding just 24 in 42 matches. 

 


From 26 November 1977 to 9 December 1978, Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest team achieved 42 consecutive wins in the former Division One. Clough currently holds the record for the highest win percentage (46.2%) among any manager with 50 or more matches at the club. 

The Tricky Trees won a major title in 1997-98 when they won the Football League Second Division. After facing relegation, Nottingham Forest made a comeback in the Premier League at the first attempt, being crowned Division One champions in 1997-98. That season, Pierre Van Hooijdonk of the Tricky Trees finished as the joint-top scorer with Sunderland’s Kevin Phillips, with 29 goals that season.

Forest’s journey draws parallels with Leicester’s legendary campaign

Nottingham Forest’s rise this season is inevitably drawing comparisons to their East Midlands rivals Leicester City. The Foxes’ remarkable title triumph in 2016 remains one of the most unexpected achievements in sports history. Leicester had been relegation favourites the season prior and they narrowly escaped the drop before defying all odds the following year.

Under Claudio Ranieri, Leicester won the Premier League by a commanding 10-point margin, losing only three matches. By the 20-game mark in the 2015-16 season, they had accumulated 40 points—a tally Forest has also matched.

The blistering speed of Jamie Vardy, the creativity of Riyad Mahrez and Marc Albrighton on the wings, and the relentless work rate of N’Golo Kante in midfield anchored Leicester’s success365. The team’s defensive solidity was marshalled by captain Wes Morgan, who joined Leicester in 2012 after spending a decade at Forest’s City Ground.

Forest’s current squad reflects some of Leicester’s 2016 blueprint. Chris Wood, with 13 goals this season, serves as the central attacking figure akin to Vardy. Meanwhile, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Anthony Elanga offer width, with Morgan Gibbs-White and Elliot Anderson pulling the strings in midfield.

Best counter-attacking team

The Tricky Trees have developed themselves as the Premier League’s best counter-attacks, but the statistics say otherwise. Their possession is lowest at just 39.9% and passes into the penalty box averaging 22.8 in the division, but Santo’s simple blueprint has allowed them to go against the trend, having set the side in a 4-2-3-1 formation to play counter-attacking football with the use of pacy attackers on the flanks.

The Tricky Trees possess just an 11.24% conversion percentage, as per Opta, and their underlying numbers suggest massive overperformance in both attack and defence all credit belongs to striker Chris Wood and goalkeeper Martz Sels. Wood is now Forest’s leading goalscorer, having scored 12 goals in the Premier League era with an xG of 7.2. He boasts an impressive 32.35% conversion rate, better than Mohammed Salah, Cole Palmer, Erling Haaland and Alexander Isac, who all have 13 goals or more.

With 30 goals in the League, Forest ranks as only the 13th-highest scorer, hoping for continued support from Kiwis to over-perform. Sels has been guarding the fort pretty well for the Forest having transformed them into a Champions League contender for relegation candidate.

The 32-year-old Brazilian boasts the most number of clean sheets (9) which is joint second-highest best defensive record (20 goals conceded), and having conceded just 78.95% least amount of goals from its penalty box. The defensive back had largely been undisturbed with Sels in the post behind the defence of Ola Aina, Nikola Milenkovic, Murillo and Neco Williams.



Signings of Selz and Milenkovic have proved to be crucial for Forest’s uptick in fortunes. Their latest draw with the Reds proved them as solid title contenders who can give big upsets in the days to come.

What next?

As Nottingham Forest continues their remarkable campaign, they are rewriting the script of what is possible for a promoted team. With a solid defensive core, clinical finishing from Chris Wood, and tactical brilliance from Nuno Espirito Santo, the Tricky Trees have emerged as genuine contenders in the Premier League. 

While comparisons with Leicester City’s fairy-tale triumph in 2016 are inevitable, Forest’s unique journey and resilience are carving a new legacy in English football. Whether they can sustain this momentum remains to be seen but one thing is clear: Nottingham Forest is a team to watch out for in the coming fixtures as their rise is one of the most captivating stories of the season.

 Nottingham Forest’s remarkable Premier League rise mirrors Leicester City’s 2016 fairytale, showcasing solid defence, tactical brilliance, and resilience.  Football Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today

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