Arsenal favoured at the City Ground, but Forest's numbers tell a mixed story
Opta data makes Arsenal strong favourites against Nottingham Forest, yet underlying stats show Oliver Glasner's side creating chances even in defeat, while Arsenal's own attack carries its own questions.
Arsenal arrive at the City Ground as clear favourites, with Opta's model giving them a 58.3% chance of victory over Nottingham Forest on Sunday, the highest probability assigned to any away side on this round of Premier League fixtures, according to The Analyst.
That confidence sits oddly against recent history between the two clubs. The last two league meetings at the City Ground produced no goals at all, despite a combined 40 shots across the two games, per the same Opta preview. Tight, cagey football has been the norm there, whatever the form book says beforehand.
Glasner's numbers keep sliding the wrong way
Nottingham Forest's manager Oliver Glasner has not found a way to turn performances into points for a long stretch now. The Analyst traces his downturn back to 7 December last year, when he led Crystal Palace to a 2-1 win over Fulham with the Eagles sitting fourth in the table.
Since that result, Glasner has managed only five wins in 29 top-flight matches, with nine draws and 15 defeats, a run that spans the end of his Palace tenure, his Conference League triumph in May, and the start of his Forest reign.
Only one of those five wins has come since he took over at Forest, and across that 29-game sample his win ratio of 17% is the second worst of any manager to have taken charge of at least 20 Premier League games in that span, behind only former Wolves manager Rob Edwards on 13%, per The Analyst.
The most recent data point will have hurt in a particular way. Forest lost 3-1 at Selhurst Park last weekend, Glasner's old home ground, despite registering 24 shots and 3.36 expected goals. Their eight big chances created in that defeat were the most by any Premier League team losing a match since Blackburn Rovers against Newcastle United in February 2012, a statistic that points to chance creation without conversion rather than a team being outplayed.
Arsenal's own attacking gaps have not disappeared
Arsenal's position looks stronger but is not without its own cracks. Guardian writer Daniel Harris noted before kick-off that the club spent the summer trying to recruit forwards precisely because they lack elite attacking quality, despite their recent run of strong seasons. Harris argued that their biggest summer addition was not a transfer at all but the psychological freedom that comes with being champions, allowing Mikel Arteta's side to play with more conviction rather than scrambling for signings who were not quite good enough.
That freedom has not fully solved the finishing problem in one specific area. Arsenal have gone six Premier League games without scoring from a non-penalty set piece, their longest such drought since a seven-match run between January and March 2025, according to The Analyst. For a team built on structure and control, a dead-ball supply line running dry is a detail worth tracking rather than dismissing.
Set against Forest's pattern of generating chances without results, the match has the look of two teams whose underlying numbers do not map neatly onto expected outcomes. Arsenal's control and game management have carried them to the top of the measures that matter most this season, but their set-piece drought and reliance on open-play creation leave room for a Forest side that has shown, even in heavy defeats, that it can get the ball into dangerous areas.
The two clubs also share a longer thread of connection away from this fixture. Planet Football's latest quiz asked readers to name every player to have appeared for both Arsenal and Nottingham Forest since 1990, a reminder that despite operating in very different competitive orbits in the modern game, the two clubs have exchanged a surprising number of players across three decades.
None of that history changes what is at stake on Sunday. Arsenal travel to the City Ground looking to maintain pace with Manchester City at the top of the table, while Forest continue searching for the result that would finally turn Glasner's chance creation into points.