Nottingham Forest are currently sitting pretty in third place in the Premier League table and the club’s fan base are dreaming of playing European football next season.
Nuno Espirito Santo has been the man masterminding the success that has been achieved so far this season. Although Evangelos Marinakis almost sacked Espirito Santo last season, he’s now reaping the rewards for showing faith.
There have been a number of top performances over the course of this season. Forest won away at Anfield against Liverpool, beat Manchester United at Old Trafford and last time out hit Brighton for seven at the City Ground.
Espirito Santo is keen to reiterate in every one of his press conferences that it’s all about the players. However, it’s hard to deny him some of the credit for such a meteoric rise up the Premier League table.
Nottingham Forest statistic emerges that dispels one Espirito Santo myth
Forest have earned praise from Jamie Redknapp this season. However, some other pundits haven’t been quite as complimentary, although Gary Lineker has performed a U-turn on his pre-season predictions about the club.
Some have suggested that Forest are sound on the counter and used it as a big old stick to beat the club with. It’s almost as if every other style of play that isn’t out of the Pep Guardiola playbook is frowned upon as negative.
Some statistics have now come to light that dispel any myth that Espirito Santo is something of a negative manager. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that he’s now averse to making positive changes in matches.
The Athletic has produced some statistics on every team and their in-game tactical tweaks over the course of the campaign. Forest have made 19 changes, the most of any other team ahead of West Ham who are second having made 14 in-game tweaks.
Espirito Santo deserves his flowers for Forest efforts
Whether it was an ill-fated spell with Tottenham or not, Espirito Santo is now deserving of so much praise for what he’s done during his time as the Forest head coach.
He was a very capable coach with Wolves and led them to Europe in two successive campaigns after leading the team to the Championship title prior to those exploits.
Espirito Santo is grounded, hardworking and is often keen to talk about the we and the use, as opposed to the I which is what some of his predecessors have been guilty of.
These statistics mean that he deserves his flowers for what he’s doing at Forest. He’s capable of changing things in the big moments and clearly something has clicked for him on Trentside this season.
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