Match Review: Nottingham Forest 0-0 Arsenal

A night that exposed our attacking struggles like never before, as we failed to capitalise on a solid away performance and fell further behind runaway leaders Liverpool.

A match which was heavily dictated by Mikel Arteta's men ended in a stalemate, further highlighting the poor decision to forgo reinforcements in January and gamble with key players' fitness.

It was a game of very few chances, encapsulating our squad's current state – lacking creativity in attack and reliant on a resolute defence.

Pivotal Moment of the Game

Our best moment of the game came from an unlikely source – Italian left-back Riccardo Calafiori.

Arteta has been scratching his head searching for solutions to our attacking problems, with his latest experiment deploying Mikel Merino as a centre-forward. However, it was Calafiori who redefined the role of an inverting fullback last night. He shifted between joining Merino in the final third when in possession and reverting to a traditional left-back when out of it.

Trossard, who was providing the width down our left-hand side, fed the ball into the Italian international, who excellently turned inside the box and fired the ball into the post and back into the scampering Forest goalkeeper Matz Sels.

This proved to be our best chance of the game, and one you feel with a fully fit and firing frontline, the only one we would have needed.

Set-Piece Agony

Our set-pieces have been one of the huge talking points of this season. With many goals coming from corners, we've been labelled as 'The new Stoke City', due to their threat from corners under former boss Tony Pulis.

However, despite being awarded 11 corner kicks yesterday – the most we've had since our two corner goals against Man United in December – none of them provided the decisive goal.

This may be due to the hindered delivery in the absence of Bukayo Saka, who has already provided 10 assists in the Premier League this season, despite being missing since December.

Stats and Facts

It was the first time we've failed to score in back-to-back Premier League games since May 2023 (v Brighton and Forest).

Declan Rice became the third youngest player to start 250 games in the Premier League, behind only Gareth Barry and Wayne Rooney.

We have drawn a third of our Premier League games (9) – our most in a league campaign since 2019-20 (14).

It was the first time Nottingham Forest had drawn a Premier League game 0-0 since October 2023, ending a run of a 56 league games without one. Only Spurs (107), among current Premier League clubs, were on a longer run in the top-flight without one heading into Matchday 27.