Nuno Espirito Santo shows ‘how good’ he is as Sky Sports man spots clever Nottingham Forest tactic

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Nottingham Forest produced another statement away victory in the Premier League, beating Everton 2-0 at Goodison Park to see out 2024.

Forest beat Everton thanks to goals from Chris Wood and Morgan Gibbs-White, leaving Nuno Espirito Santo’s side comfortably in the top four in the Premier League table.

Despite Mike Dean thinking James Tarkowski should’ve seen red for Everton, Forest were comfortable throughout at Goodison Park thanks to exceptional counterattacking play.

One aspect that could’ve been an issue for Espirito Santo was the absence of Murillo, who pulled up injured in the warm-up against Everton.

Espirito Santo delivered a worrying update on Murillo after the game, but Sky Sports journalist Sam Blitz noticed one tweak that the Portuguese manager made in response to the injury that paid dividends.

Sky Sports pundit praises Nuno Espirito Santo’s tactical tweak

Reporting on the game for Sky Sports, Blitz noticed that one change that Espirito Santo made involving Gibbs-White helped the Forest squad adapt without Murillo’s passing expertise in the buildup to Wood’s opening goal.

He said: “Forest lost Murillo before kick-off and this is the sign of how good a manager Nuno Espirito Santo is.

“Gibbs-White takes up the spot Murillo would take by dropping deep and he creates the opener with a brilliant long ball up to Wood.”

Clearly having to adapt to Morato and Nikola Milenkovic’s comparably limited passing range compared to Murillo’s, dropping the capable Gibbs-White into a deeper role was ingenious by the Forest manager.

However, Gibbs-White deserves credit too for his ability to adapt to the deeper role in which he has starred recently for Forest.

Morgan Gibbs-White showed his versatility vs Everton

The Engish midfielder played well in a deeper role when Forest beat Brentford before Christmas, with his strong positional sense taking him into that deeper role for Forest’s opener against Everton.

The pass to Wood was his only attempted long ball in the whole match, highlighting that the role was not a permanent one but more of a clever instinctive decision from Gibbs-White and his manager.

Given that Gibbs-White would then go on to score Forest’s second goal, the win against Everton showed that Espirito Santo and his Forest coaching staff can rely on their midfield maestro to help them adapt to future situations like the Murillo injury that create tactical conundrums.