Overview: Arsenal against Nottingham Forest | Pre-game report | News

The Premier League action returns on Saturday (12:30 p.m.) when we take a new side of Nottingham Forest, while we aim to deposit a marker by returning to the victory in advance on seven matches piled up in 21 days.

The first sees us welcome a forest team dealing with the superb news of this week that saw Nuno Espirito Santo replaced in the Pirogue by Ange Postocoglou, who will seek to revitalize a team that has lost five of its last 11 championship games while a potential spot of the Champions League has slipped in the last few weeks.

The delicate trees will arrive in N5 undefeated in their last four Premier League games outside – which all came to London. However, they have never won at the Emirates Stadium, or even tasted our corner from northern London since 1989. The maintenance of this will be imperative for Mikel Arteta while we are trying to take a momentum in these important first weeks.

Forest Fire Nuno

Despite the supervision of an incredible campaign, the last mandate which saw Forest finish seventh in the Premier League to win European football for the first time in 29 years, the troubles in the background saw Nuno leaving on Monday and was quickly replaced by another former boss of Tottenham Hotspur in Postcoglou the next day.

The Australian takes the reins of a team that won, fired and lost his first three games, defeating Brentford at home on the day of the opening before a 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace on their only road match so far. Nuno’s last match saw them beat 3-0 by West Ham United, while the winds of dissatisfaction have gone around the city of the city.

As usual, there was a wave of activities surrounding the Forest team this summer, with former Gunner Omari Hutchinson their greatest expense in a club record of 37.5 million pounds sterling. Swiss striker Dan Ndoye cost 34 million pounds from Bologna, while Big Money was also splashed on James Mcatee by Manchester City and the goalkeeper Arnaud Kalimuendo.

Douglas Luiz and our own Zinchenko Oleksandr arrived on loan as part of a shopping trip of 171 million pounds Sterling, a large part of which was offset by the sales of Anthony Elaga in Newcastle United and Danilo, who returned to Brazil with Botofago.

What managers say

Arteta: “After a defeat, you want to have a match in the next three days, take it out of the system. But at the same time, I look at the international functions of the players and how they grew up. I feel proud because they can lose a game and can go to the national team, they can click again, play and most of them win and they are very important.

“With Angel, his greatest strength, in my opinion, is the way he was. He put his fingerprints on this team, and he has a very clear way to play, very clear DNA and is extremely good to watch. I learned a lot from him, and it will be a very difficult game. – Read each word from the pre -match press conference of Mikel

Postcoglu: “I do not see it as a point to prove. I have nothing to prove to anyone. I like my teams to play fascinating football and score goals and excite fans. I have to convince each person of the building on what we are trying to do in the back of their do something in a certain way and to succeed in this way.

“It is fair to say that this will not happen overnight; It is a process that will take a little time, but never at the expense of competitiveness.

Team news

Bukayo Saka continues to be absent after having an injury to the hamstrings against Leeds United three weeks ago. William Saliba missed international functions with France graceful of the ankle issue which forced him to leave against Liverpool, but he trained on Friday and could come back.

In more good news for Mikel Arteta, Christian Norgaard and Ben White were also photographed in training this week and could be in good shape to appear, but Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus are both missing with their knee injuries.

The first selection of the PostCoglu team will not include Oleksandr Zinchenko because it is not eligible to make its forest debut against its parent club, while its rear options are limited further while Ola Aina took an injury to the hamstrings playing for Nigeria on Monday and will be released for months.

Meanwhile, the Argentinian midfielder Nicolas Domínguez is not available either because he continues to recover from knee surgery in May.

Speech tactics

Adrian Clarke, writing The official program of the day:: The arrival of the postcoglou should not have an impact on the usual form of Forest 4-2-3-1. He preferred a 4-3-3 at Spurs, but his expansive style is practically the polar opposite of the compact and counterattacker approach that worked so well under Nuno.

Forest had already started to evolve their style of play. They have an average of 57% possession in their first three games, and only Chelsea and Manchester City made more successful passes – last season, Forest ranked last in this department! However, PostCoglou’s preference to hold a higher line could create uncertainty, and only three teams had faced more shots on the target than on Saturday visitors, a sign that they have not yet found harmony in their work out of the ball.

The wingers Dan Ndoye and Callum Hudson-Odoi are a handful, and the first has already marked and assisted, therefore its threat on the right flank must be contained. Morgan Gibbs-White pulls the strings between these two. His eye for a killer’s pass is well known, so we must try to prevent the Talismanic midfielder Elliot Anderson from feeding on passes in his feet.

The sets were a major asset for the forest in 2024/25, when they scored the most goals of the dead balls. In the current state of things, they had the least attempts at sets of sets – only four this season, while we could find joy against them in the air, because the delicate trees have faced 12 favorites so far, the most in the division.

Facts and statistics

We have won our last six home games against Nottingham Forest by a global score of 19-2. We are undefeated in 14 home games against them since a 3-1 defeat in March 1989.

Forest won only two of the 16 Premier League matches against us, and the two victories occurred at City Ground, in 1996/97 and 2022/23.

Among the current teams of the Premier League, only Fulham (12) are longer without white leaf than the forest (11); Far from his home, Forest has disappeared nine without laundering since he kept three consecutive in December and January last season.

Two of the three parts to do the highest pressures in the last third of the season are Nottingham Forest (301, 2nd) and ourselves (280, 3rd), with Viktor Gyokerres (76, 2nd) and Chris Wood (72, 3rd) also in the first three among the players of this metric.

Forest made the most passes ending in the last third of the season (471) and played the most passes in the box (114) of any team. Forest is also at the top of the Cross cards (85) in 2025-26, with their average of 28.3 per match much higher than their average last season (16.3 per match).

After his hug against Leeds, Viktor Gyokerres could become the third player to score in each of his first two home appearances in the Premier League for us after Marouane Chamakh (2010) and Alexandre Lacazette (2017).

Chris Wood only made the Premier League appearances without scoring in Anfield (8) and Etihad (7) than at the Emirates Stadium (6).

Morgan Gibbs-White made more appearances in the Premier League (8) without recording a single goal or helping against us than against any other party.

Civil servant

Darren England was appointed to this match, his first appearance in N5 since our 1-0 victory against the city of Ipswich last December. His only other Gunners’ match The last mandate saw us draw 1-1 with Everton in April, where he gave a controversial penalty to the hosts.

He published nine yellows and granted a penalty in his two high -flying games this quarter, but he highlighted the place in three of his last four games in all competitions.

Arbitrator: Darren England
Assistants: Scott Ledger, Nick Greenhalgh
Fourth official: Oliver Langford
OUR: Andy Madley
The assistant was: Marc Perry

Recent forest visits

Delicate trees did not like to visit Emirates Stadium because they lost on four occasions they played with us, conceding 15 times and net once. This miserable record continued when we missed 3-0 winners last November when Bukayo Saka, Thomas Partey and Ethan Nwaneri all scored during a routine victory.

The previous season saw Forest head to our home on the day of the 2023/24 opening, and we made a winning start as the strike from Eddie Nketiah and a goal of the clinitor of the Saka season won a 2-1 victory on the Steve Cooper team.

The previous year was the day of Reiss Nelson when he left the bench to score twice in a 5-0 success in October 2022, with Gabriel Martinelli, Party and Martin Odegaard also in net – the same score as during the first goals of the Reds League Cup.