Nuno Espirito Santo shares damning reason behind Forest tactics for Arsenal: ‘There’s no need’ | OneFootball

Nuno Espirito Santo explained his tactics after Nottingham Forest stifled Arsenal in a Premier League stalemate at the City Ground.

The toothless Gunners, playing without a recognised striker and with midfielder Mikel Merino as a makeshift No 9, managed just one shot on target, with Riccardo Calafiori also hitting the post in the first half.

Arsenal were 11 points behind runaway leaders Liverpool at the start of the evening, albeit with a game in hand, but failure to win extended the gap to 13 points after Liverpool later beat Newcastle United 2-0. Forest remained six points behind Arsenal in third place, keeping up their hopes of Champions League football next season, as they advanced to 48 points.

After the match Nuno was questioned by former Arsenal defender Martin Keown, working as a pundit for TNT Sports, on why he used four defenders rather than the five he deployed in Forest’s recent thrashing of Brighton.

“Arsenal doesn’t have a striker,” smiled Nuno. “So with Merino playing in that position, there is no need for an extra body (in defence). So the overload was in the midfield - it’s about containing the midfield.”

Mikel Merino struggled to make an impact in attack (AP)

Forest's surprise challenge for Champions League qualification had hit the buffers with just one win from their last five and they appeared to be running out of steam, with Manchester City and Chelsea breathing down their necks. But this was a good response to the 4-3 defeat at Newcastle and Nuno said the result meant they were “finding themselves as a team again”.

“The most important thing was to realise how we do things, how we play and our strengths. Today it was there,” he said. “We were compact and didn’t allow Arsenal too much. Arsenal had chances, of course, because they are a very good team. But at the same time, we were compact, solid and aggressive.

“Maybe we could have found better transition points but it is always difficult. The positive is the clean sheet and, more than anything, finding ourselves as a team again with the way we do things. In the last moments of the game, we were the team getting the set-pieces and the dangerous momentum. That is a positive, also.”