EFL Championship 2019/20: West Bromwich Albion vs Nottingham Forest – tactical analysis

For the first game of this week’s EFL Championship, it was a huge clash between West Bromwich Albion and Nottingham Forest, two teams that are fighting for the promotion to the Premier League. Slaven Bilić’s team was trying to increase the gap with Leeds United, if they managed to win this one, they enjoyed a maximum of nine-point margin. However, after 90 minutes, they merely obtained one point, it was a draw.

Sabri Lamouchi’s team just lost to Charlton in the midweek fixture, but they secured a tremendous 2-0 victory against Leeds last week, they were looking to provide a stern test to West Brom.

In this tactical analysis, we will show you how West Bromwich Albion drew Nottingham Forest. It is an analysis that focuses on tactics.

Lineups

For this big game, Bilić started a strong team, which was the exact same eleven from the win against Reading in the midweek. It was a 4-1-4-1 formation, with Romaine Sawyers, Jake Livermore and Filip Krovinović forming the midfield trio. They had Callum Robinson and Matheus Pereira at flanks who produced the threat.

Forest played in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Adama Diakhaby was dropped to the bench and Sammy Ameobi returned to the lineup. Carl Jenkinson was on the bench and Matty Cash played as the right-back; Yuri Ribeiro was the left-back; Samba Sow partnered Ben Watson at the midfield.

Defence of Forest

Forest were a very defensive team, they were better off the ball. Therefore, they were pleased to let West Brom control possession. The tasks of Forest players were mainly defending with a midblock and playing counter-attacks.

For their midblock, they defended in a similar style as they did in the win against Leeds. A small change was the positionings of the wingers, as both Ameobi and Tiago Silva were defending higher, at the same line with Joe Lolley and Lewis Grabban. Therefore, the defensive shape was looked like a 4-2-4, as illustrated in the below image.