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Austrian’s tactics need adapting to but Forest are in the bottom three and their owner is not the patient type Sitting 19th in the Premier League was not the plan for Nottingham Forest after the arrival of a highly acclaimed manager and a £45m striker to fuel their ambitions. The fates of Oliver Glasner and Liam Delap are intertwined and with the stark stats of zero home goals and a solitary point at the City Ground: it is not the dream start they were aiming for. As Delap prepares to return to Ipswich, where his career ignited, on Friday night, Forest are remaining calm. There is a desperation to get away from the short-termism that caused so many problems; 12 months ago, they were on their third head coach of a disappointing season. This summer they were ruthless with the removal of Vítor Pereira, who had done a fine job to escape the drop, because they saw an opportunity to upgrade with Glasner, hoping he could transform Forest like he did Crystal Palace. It cost plenty to acquire Glasner and Delap, which many fans believe should lead to instant results, but that is rarely the case in an industry as complicated as football. For the coach it is a case of learning the club inside out while influencing performance through an implementation of his carefully choreographed methods. For the striker he needs to rebuild confidence and that comes via goals. In Glasner’s first full season at Palace, they won one of their first 13 league matches but ended comfortably in mid-table and as FA Cup winners. It was similar at Eintracht Frankfurt, getting one victory in 10 but going on to win the Europa League. Learning the Glasner way is not straightforward for a team; it is different from what they have known. Playing three at the back is rarely the norm and nor is having two No 10s, all for Forest with the background of losing the club’s best player Elliot Anderson. The recruitment was measured, targeting positions that required strengthening and avoiding needless purchases, which dogged the club after promotion. Replacing Anderson became a priority but Glasner felt James McAtee could adapt to a deeper role in midfield alongside the shrewd free signing Xaver Schlager. Ousmane Diomande was a coup in defence and Glasner’s lure convinced Daniel Muñoz to follow him from Selhurst Park. Behind the obvious figures, there is plenty of underlying encouragement for Forest. Based on chances created and conceded, Glasner has had the best start of any Forest manager in the Premier League era. His team rank seventh, according to Opta, for expected goals (xG) but have scored the fewest – five – and are the biggest xG underperformers at -6.2. It is a huge discrepancy, missing out on almost a goal a game. It includes 62 shots at home that have come to nothing and if Glasner wants buy-in from the fans, that needs to change quickly. If every team had scored and conceded the goals measured by xG, Forest would be fourth. . It is understandable that Delap is yet to find his feet, after a disappointing year at Chelsea and lack of pre-season set him back. Forest tried to sign him before he went to Stamford Bridge and have great faith in him but he needs to improve his record of one goal every five league appearances. The striker is the ideal No 9, possessing pace, power and sharp finishing, but unless he is on peak form, turning that into guaranteed output is not straightforward. Delap has scored once for Forest but is putting in the effort through being the front line of defence, relentlessly pressing opposition centre-backs. He has shown plenty of quick thinking, demonstrated by his quick throw-in to set up a goal at Anfield, something almost replicated against Arsenal only for Chris Wood to miss the chance. Forest allowed Arsenal a single shot on target last Sunday – it just happened to be deflected in for a winner. Glasner can also point in that match to the absence of his captain, Morgan Gibbs-White, the team’s attacking fulcrum. “It feels very unfair,” Glasner said of the result. “We have to accept we are missing some bits. But the performance in many parts was very good.” In two full seasons at Selhurst Park, Glasner won two major trophies for a club that had gone almost 120 years without one. He has two European titles and his own distinctive formation and execution, something he has harnessed over 12 years in coaching, so he knows how long it takes to develop the complexities. The picture looks clearer after almost four months together. The hope at Forest is that the endeavour is rewarded with greater luck, the missing ingredient among well thought-out recruitment led by the chief football officer, George Syrianos, and his team and clever coaching. Syrianos is Glasner’s biggest advocate and told fans the manager would be given time. Friday will be Glasner’s eighth Premier League match at Forest, three more than Ange Postecoglou was permitted before being sacked this time last year by the owner, Evangelos Marinakis. Glasner, unlike the Australian, can show progress and will be justifiably confident points will come.

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Champions so risk-averse Forest were lured into thinking they had a chance, until bench was used to see them off Pass. Pass. Pass. Pass. Sideways. Square. Backwards. Pass. Pass. Recycle. Pass. It wasn’t much of a spectacle. But in the end, for the second week running, thanks in no small part of their bench, Arsenal won. Fireworks in the autumn are for Bonfire Night; titles require relentless accumulation. Since the international break, Arsenal have won three games out of three despite not being in the lead at half-time in any of them. Hammered at Brighton and having endured a drab first hour at home to Leeds last week, there has been a rare sense, for the first time really since Manchester City dropped points at Everton at the beginning of May, of Arsenal not being quite at their best, needing to reassert their quality. This was not a performance that would terrify any opponent, but it did highlight Arsenal’s consistency and it did demonstrate just how deep their squad now runs. There were long periods when they were extremely flat. In the first half the ball was moved too slowly, too risk-aversely, for Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze consistently to isolate their full-backs. There were very few attempts to play the ball in behind an admittedly well-organised Forest backline. It was all very safe, seemingly predicated more on waiting for Forest to make a mistake than on trying to break the game open with a moment of genius. The breakthrough, ultimately, was delivered by Noni Madueke who, when he got a run at Daniel Múñoz, took full advantage, albeit with a substantial deflection off the thigh of Jair Cunha. It was Arsenal’s only shot on target – and it wasn’t even on the bit of the target it ended up going in. Arsenal may have been working with Germán Castaños, a creativity coach who has worked in handball, in designing TV gameshows and with his local council. By challenging the players and presenting them with unusual situations during the week, the theory goes, he can help them to come up with innovative solutions at the weekend. It must take a lot of creativity to make a team as unremarkable as this. Mikel Arteta is a great believer in the sort of team-building techniques that to outsiders might look like high-performance gimmicks but you dread to think how hard a watch his side would be if their collective imagination wasn’t constantly being stimulated. Castaños got a boxer to fight two opponents and a Japanese football team to play against a side with 16 men. You wonder how a team might prepare to face an Oliver Glasner side in full stifle mode. Running headfirst into a line of three brick walls, perhaps? Or rather, given how Arsenal played for the first two-thirds of the game, running parallel to three walls looking suspiciously at them? For an hour, this was about patience and risk aversion, the only occasional flurries of something approaching unpredictability coming via Saka on the right. The England winger perhaps suffers the curse of those who emerge young, that consistent excellence seems somehow not quite enough, a betrayal of that teenage potential. Familiarity in football often breeds, if not quite contempt, then at least a sense that there could be more. He is certainly not playing badly, and he has scored three league goals, but equally, at 25, he is not the exhilarating presence he was at 21. Perhaps that is simply how Arteta wants his wide players to play, prioritising consistency and efficiency over the spectacular. Perhaps the fears of those who felt Saka was being played too consistently are being realised and he is experiencing an element of fatigue. Or perhaps this is just what regular mature performances look like in the modern Premier League. There was one delightful early turn that drew Neco Williams into a trip that earned him a yellow card, which it might have been thought would encourage Saka to run at the wing-back, but the pattern remained the patient sideways passing. Saka, though, did at least offer more than Eze on the other flank, and it was no great surprise when the former Crystal Palace man was withdrawn at half-time for Madueke. Staying wider more consistently, Madueke did perhaps offer a greater threat but he did have more space for him to exploit as an encouraged Forest began to push forward more. That, in fact, for a long time seemed Arsenal’s best chance, playing with such an absence of threat that it lured Forest into the thought that there was more for them in the game than a worthy clean sheet and a notable point. Leeds, perhaps, might argue they were suckered by something similar last week. As in that game, what turned things Arsenal’s way was a triple substitution midway through the second half. The arrival of Jurriën Timber, Mikel Merino and Viktor Gyökeres gave Arsenal legs and purpose that Forest could not match. Even as Forest were forced out of their defensive shape to chase an equaliser, the bulk of the game was played in their half. It may not have been especially thrilling, but it was enough and it was, in its own understated way, an expression of Arsenal’s strength. Thrills can come later.

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The theme before kick-off was blanks. Or, more precisely, whether either team could stop firing them at the City Ground. It is a detail to make Oliver Glasner extremely uncomfortable that his Nottingham Forest team had still to score at their home stadium. Arsenal, meanwhile, had drawn 0-0 on each of their previous two visits to this part of the East Midlands. Forest’s frustrations under their new manager go on. It was another spirited performance from them, bits to like, especially a full throttle performance from Liam Delap in the No 9 position. But, for the fifth time under Glasner in all competitions, there was not a goal to celebrate in front of the club’s home fans. It was a game that came to feel increasingly set up for the famous terrace chant. One-nil to the Ars-en-nal. Or, as the travelling hordes would have it, one-nil to the champions. Arsenal did not play well. They created little, finishing with just one shot of target. How Noni Madueke made it count. On as a half-time substitute, the winger took a pass from Declan Rice in the 80th minute and had only one thing on his mind. To cut inside from the left and unload. The connection was pure and that was when he caught a break, which he has worked to earn after a difficult start to the season. The ball deflected off Jair Cunha and flew past the Forest goalkeeper, Matz Sels. Forest refused to accept the inevitable. Chris Wood, on as a substitute, delayed too long and saw Rice block. Murillo, all of all players, danced inside from the left and curled just off target. And Delap was denied at the death by a thunderous Ezri Konsa block tackle. But it did feel inevitable. Arsenal had not forgotten their previous away fixture – the 3-0 defeat at Brighton. It remains the only blot on their season. Arsenal had kicked off six points behind Manchester City, who have been perfect on the field in the league this season. Will it matter when the sanctions for their rule breaches are meted out? All Arsenal can do is play the situation as it stands and there was a boost for them here when the teamsheets dropped, which was about the same time that Morgan Gibbs-White was driving his Porsche into the stadium car park. Forest’s key attacking midfielder missed out with a calf injury. He was a big miss. Glasner said that shooting practice had been a major part of his training sessions during the week and how the home crowd wanted to see something from their team in front of goal. The game was framed from a Forest point of view by the extraordinary number of openings they had blown in the 3-1 defeat at Crystal Palace last weekend; they had eight big chances, according to the statisticians. They were never going to get anything like that number against Arsenal. Arteta’s team hogged the ball. As they were always likely to do. Bruno Guimarães looked to push up at the outset and combine with Martin Ødegaard, who occupied the No 10 position. Rice was the nominal holding midfielder. Arsenal were determined to be patient but it was flat and predictable from them before the interval. The lack of incisive movement was glaring. That said, Forest were compact out of possession in what was a 5-4-1 formation and hard to break down. They were resolved not to give up any easy yards. Arsenal played their patterns. They tried to suck the life out of the home crowd, working on the principle that it is difficult for fans to get animated if their team do not have the ball. The first half drifted by in a lazy Sunday afternoon haze, no shots on target for either side. Delap carried the physical fight; the Forest centre-forward was a willing and direct runner and he won a free-kick off Rice just outside the Arsenal box on 44 minutes. Nico Williams thumped it at Guimarães, who went down stayed down. The Forest support were unhappy at what they perceived as Arsenal’s use of the dark arts. “Are you City in disguise?” they chanted. Could a set-piece provide the breakthrough? It felt like the likeliest route. Murillo headed wide from a Forest corner in the 20th minute and was bloodied into the bargain; there was a whistle for a foul in the mass of bodies inside the six-yard box. At the other end, Kai Havertz headed over from a Rice free-kick on 37 minutes. He had a decent look at the ball and was well-placed. It was a good chance. Arsenal have been a little barren in first halves this season. This was the seventh time in 10 matches since the Community Shield that they had failed to score. It has not been a problem. They needed to raise their levels for the second-half. Arteta’s first change was Madueke for Eberechi Eze on the left wing; an admission that the latter had failed to exert an influence. There was also a triple substitution on 66 minutes, the Arsenal manager sending on Jurrien Timber, Mikel Merino and Viktor Gyökeres for Ben White, Guimarães and Havertz. He needed to shake things up because nothing was happening for his team. It was Forest who pushed after the restart, with Delap continuing to put himself about. He asked questions of Gabriel Magalhães, albeit the Arsenal defender tended to have the answers. The minutes ticked down, the contest narrowing to a fine point and we waited to see whether there could be a moment, one big chance. Ødegaard almost provided it in the 72nd minute when he released Timber with a lovely pass up the inside right. When Timber pulled back, Rice lifted wastefully high. Glasner’s decision to introduce Ibrahim Sangaré for Dan Ndoye shortly afterwards was telling. Sangaré’s mission was to bolster the Forest midfield and yet he was slow to react to a half-cleared ball. When Rice played the pass, Madueke took over.

Premier League·0–1

Arsenal spent the summer trying to by forwards and rightly so: they lack elite attacking quality, and well though they’ve done over the last few seasons, it has unarguably cost them. The best summer acquisition though, was not a player, but the Premier League trophy or, more pertinently, the status of champions, also known as freedom. It meant they didn’t need to fritter money on someone they knew at the time wasn’t of the standard they were seeking in the hope they might contribute a key moment or two which pushed them over the edge. Instead, they could attack the season with confidence and without the desperate pressure of flailing failure, developing a style that could made the eyes bleed into a knowing, aggressive flow. Of course they’re still a magician and matchwinner short but, in the meantime, they’re still much better than they were. These days, a tousing at Brighton can happen to anyone, so what’s of greater significance is the response: a comeback win against a confident and physical Leeds, then a Champions League win with a rotated team. Or put another way, Mikel Smugteta is an even better manager than Mikel Angsteta, and just as freakishly intense. Forest, meantime, have made a confusing start to the season, decent performances at Liverpool and Villa undermined by home defeats to Leeds and Coventry, the latter then followed last week by a gubbing at Palace. They are surely far too good to become embroiled in a relegation struggle, but the possibility will linger as long as the identity of those who are not remains unclear, while only Spurs have mustered fewer than their five league goals. All of which makes for some pure, uncut and concentrated “this league” action; let’s get involved.