It has been an indifferent start for Sabri Lamouchi as Nottingham Forest manager, after he picked up just one point from his opening two league matches.
However, his side managed to get their first win of the season on Wednesday after defeating Fleetwood Town 1-0 in the EFL Cup.
Criticism is sparse for the new manager, and rightfully so given how early we are into his tenure at the City Ground.
But as fans begin to watch their side take shape in line with Lamouchi’s philosophies, what have we learnt so far and what can we expect from Forest this season?
Looking at both Championship fixtures so far, Lamouchi has deployed a 4-1-4-1 formation, with Ben Watson sitting and Lewis Grabban leading the attack. The aim of the setup is to put a big emphasis on remaining defensively robust.
It was a blueprint of his Rennes side, who during his last full season in charge conceded just 29 goals. Only PSG, Lyon and Montpellier could better that total.
So far, Lamouchi has seemingly instructed Forest to generally allow the opposition to work their way to the halfway line on the ball before pressing. This is demonstrated below.
Questions remain whether he would adapt this when facing less imposing opponents, with both Leeds and West Brom expected to push for promotion this season. However, the fact remains that Forest seem happy to allow the opposition plenty of the ball.
This is also highlighted in their Passes Per Defensive Action (PPDA) allowed. PPDA is a metric that measures the number of passes allowed by an opposition team before looking to win the ball back. The fewer passes allowed, then the more aggressive the press is for that side.
Across their opening two league fixtures so far, Forest have had an average PPDA of 12.11. That was lower than their average last season of 9.51.
However, it is worth nothing that when the ball is lost, his side do tend to counter-press. The purpose of this is to shut down any chance of the opposition counter-attacking them while they are defensively out of shape.
As a result of this tactic, Forest have seen a lot less of the ball, although we know from his time in France that Lamouchi doesn’t tend to overfocus on possession. In his last term at Rennes, his side ranked 11th in the division in terms of ball possession.
It looks like it may be a similar story at Forest this year, with his side enjoying an average of just 40 percent in terms of ball possession over their opening two league matches. For comparison, Forest had a ball possession average of 50 percent across last season.
A consequence of their deep-lying formation and indeed lack of possession is that sometimes, Lewis Grabban can be left isolated in attack. An example of this is below.
The ball is fired up to the forward as he attempts to hold off the challenge from the defender and retain possession of the ball. However, as has often been the case, no support is around the striker meaning he struggles to maintain possession and is crowded out.
While it’s still early in the campaign, it’s striking Grabban has managed an average of 12 passes per 90 minutes so far compared to last season's average of 19 per 90 minutes.
Overall, it’s still early days under Lamouchi and very few conclusions can truly be made, but it will be interesting to see how the season pans out with the above information in mind.
