Nottingham Forest vs Man United Odds
| Nottingham Forest Odds | +210 |
| Man United Odds | +125 |
| Draw | +260 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -138 / +107 |
Man United look to rebound from Saturday's loss they travel to the City Ground to take on Nottingham Forest.
Nottingham Forest are fighting for their lives in the Premier League, sitting four points above the drop zone with a potential points deduction looming. Even with all of that, they played much better recently and hardly look like a relegation team. They beat Manchester United 2-1 on December 31st at home and should have a lot of confidence that they can do it again.
Manchester United were on a good run of form, but that ended on Saturday when they lost to Fulham 2-1 at Old Trafford. The Red Devils have been a mess all season long from their tactics to injuries and hardly look like a top six team. The way they play leaves them open to getting beat by anybody, so they are without a doubt on upset alert here.
Check out my Nottingham Forest vs Man United prediction below.
Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest are playing a little differently under Nuno Espírito Santo than they did under Steve Cooper. There has been more of a willingness to build out from the back instead of playing incredibly direct and the formation has switched from a 3-5-2 to a 4-2-3-1, which does suit the personnel they have a little better.
There was also a stretch during January and February where pretty much all of Nottingham Forest's back line was away at the Africa Cup of Nations. Even with that in mind, under Nuno Espírito Santo, Nottingham Forest have a +0.13 xGD per 90 minutes when under Steve Cooper they were at a -0.42 xGD per 90 minutes.
They are also starting to get healthier, mainly getting Taiwo Awoniyi back up top has been a revelation. He was their main offensive threat last year and this season in his brief amount of time in the lineup has scored six goals and has a 0.43 xG per 90 minute scoring rate. He is a massive threat in transition, which is what this match is likely to turn into.
Man United
For Manchester United to be successful in this match they are going to have to play an out of possession structure that they are not used to playing, which is a passive defensive block. Erik Ten Hag wants his team to press high with the sole goal of forcing a high turnover. The problem is once they gamble and it doesn’t pay off then teams have acres of space to run at their back line.
Last season, Casemiro was playing at an unreal level in terms of his ball stopping. He now looks completely washed, so the Red Devils have conceded the fact that they are going to play in up and down basketball type of matches. It was really telling against Fulham that Manchester United, given their current squad are not cut out to "out-transition" teams the way some of the elites like Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool can.
The injuries across the back line are starting to mount for Manchester United. Lisandro Martinez is already out for an extended period of time and now Luke Shaw, who is arguably their most important player on their back line given his versatility, is now out for a while as well. On top of that Harry Maguire and Raphael Varane are most likely going to miss this match.
The Kobiee Mainoo and Casemiro midfield combined doesn't have enough ball winning for Manchester United to be pressing with only their front line. Then you combine that with the fact that they are basically playing a second-choice back line and you can see why teams have been able to exploit them in transition and why they are allowing 1.54 npxG per 90 minutes.
Nottingham Forest vs Man United
Prediction
We have the benefit of recently seeing these two play at the City Ground and it was an incredibly poor performance from Manchester United. They were inside of Nottingham Forest's penalty area quite a bit, but only managed 0.8 expected goals for the match.
It's pretty clear at this point that Ten Hag has abandoned trying to control matches and is trying to win back and forth transitional matches. Given both meeting that we've against Nottingham Forest, Manchester United are not worthy of being a road favorite.
I have this match projected right at a pick'em, so I like the value on Nottingham Forest +0.5 at -141.
