Expectations vs Reality

The game when Everton became Forest and Forest became Everton. In my preview of the game, I said Everton had been half of a team under Dyche. Good at defending but hopeless going forward. It seems Forest decided to pay tribute to the Dyche era. We were fine defensively, we restricted them to half-chances. Going forward though we looked like a team that had just met each other that morning.

I'm not trying to gloss over the performance, but we have played similar games this season without such worry about the performance. I put the disappointment down to expectations being so high because the stage was set for us to march on. A sunny day, a 3 pm kick-off and an opponent with (apparently) nothing to play for.

During the game, it felt like we couldn't string two passes together, but actually, our pass completion was bang average for us this season and was better than when we played Everton away. It was stodgey football with few chances created on Saturday. We've had similar games at home this season. Ipswich at home for example, which we won with a penalty. The result does impact our reaction to the game. Not just the immediate despair, but also in how long each performance is dissected. In this case, there is a lingering fear that the performance marks a new low. If we'd won it 1-0 it'd have been classic Forest!

When we played Everton away, we had fewer touches in the final third than on Saturday. The difference was that we found a way to hit them on the break, as they lacked the organisation they seem to have found under Moyes. On Saturday, we struggled to turn possession in the final third into chances or even just touches in the box. We managed only 8 touches in the box from our 88 touches in the final third, a 'box penetration' rate of just 9%. The only game where we were less successful at turning attacking possession into touches in the box was the 1-0 win away at Liverpool. In the Everton away game, we managed 12 touches in the box from only 73 touches in the final third, which is much more effective with less possession.

Forest's players only managed to carry the ball into the box on two occasions in the whole 90 minutes. Showing how we missed Elanga to drive us forward. Even in some of our other poor performances, such as Fulham away, we managed 5 carries into the box and in our dominant games, we managed 10.

Ultimately, this all meant that we created diddly squat. Our game plan this season is all about fine margins. Create two good chances and score one of them, then shut up shop. It's great when it works, but it looks dull and uninspiring if the opposition manages a complete shutout.

The charts below demonstrate where this game ranks against other games this season for various metrics, the squares are colour-coded to the result of that game. You can see it wasn't a great performance, but we've had worse performances (by the numbers) and still won or drawn games.

This game said more about Everton's improved ability to stop teams playing how they want than it did to indicate some malaise in the Forest team or a lack of ability going into these final games. Everton are exactly the type of team that can stifle our game plan in a way the likes of Tottenham rarely do to teams. We expected to dominate a team that rarely gets dominated, but still, they needed us to create their goal for them.

Winning Second Balls

It often felt like Everton had an extra man at the City Ground as we struggled to control loose balls and keep pressure on them. The fear is that this shows a lack of desire, speed, and awareness, but again, I suspect it's mainly down to us falling into the Everton trap of where they want the ball to go and their plan to swarm around any of our attempts to make long balls forward.

However, the numbers do show it to be true that we were poor at recovering loose balls. If we compare this game to the away game at Everton, we managed to recover the ball 19 more times at their place than on Saturday. Everton had 8 more ball recoveries than we did on Saturday, which is our worst performance of the season in that respect. Strangely coming after our best performance of the season by the same measure away at Villa.

Set-Piece Positive

One positive we can take from the game is how well we dealt with a high number of Everton set pieces. The chart below shows how vulnerable we have been against each team on average this season from set pieces. The numbers are a % of the corners and free kicks that our opposition has that result in shots or goals.

So we have restricted Everton to just 6% of set pieces resulting in shots this season. Everton aren't set-piece masters, but still a threat we all feared but have dealt with well.

The Murillo Moment

The game was of course, decided by a Murillo miscontrol that allowed Everton to break 3 v 1. I still had hope that Doucoure would put it over the bar, but unfortunately, he rounded off a strange day with a tidy finish.

Murillo's performance wasn't great all game, with other miscontrols and more misplaced passes than usual. The numbers back up that this was a poor game for him. I've grouped together a few metrics to give the 'Mistakes' number for each of his games at Forest. These are miscontrols, getting dispossessed and misplaced passes.

Murillo made 18 mistakes in the Everton home game. His most mistakes in any game this season and his most mistakes in any game for him since that 2-0 defeat away at..... Everton, of course.

You can see from the average trend line on the chart that his performances this season have included fewer errors than last season, so we must have faith that this was a blip.

Mistakes aren't always a bad thing, by the way. They can show attacking intent, playing risky balls and trying to get something from the game instead of playing safe.

For example, the game in which we made the most mistakes this season (as a team) was, you guessed it, Everton away! We still won it, and we've won other games with a high mistake count. It's about where the mistake is made and making smart mistakes.

Everton proved themselves to be tough opponents both times we faced them this season. We didn't play like prime Barcelona at their place but got the chances and goals to win it. This time, it went their way. 

Thanks for reading. On to the next one!