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Two sides who were victorious on Boxing Day meet on Saturday evening as Nottingham Forest take on Manchester United at the City Ground. This game gets underway at 5:30pm UK time.
Nottingham Forest
Nuno picked up his first victory at Nottingham Forest manager on Tuesday lunchtime as the Tricky Trees ran out 3-1 winners at St. James’ Park. Their success was notable for a number of reasons including Chris Wood firing in a hat-trick against his former employers. The Kiwi now has eight goals for the season, double the amount that he notched last season, most of which he spent wearing black and white.
Match has ended
It was also just Forest’s second away win of the season as well as just the fourth time that’ve avoided defeat on the road. However, most notably, it was the first time since August 27th that Newcastle have dropped any points at St. James’ Park. The Magpies have the second best home form in the top flight with Forest becoming just the third team (alongside Liverpool and Arsenal) to leave Tyneside with maximum points in the EPL since December 19th 2021.
The result gives the East Midlands outfit with a two point buffer over the bottom three and having played reasonably well with ten men against Bournemouth just a week ago, they can take plenty of confidence into this tie.
Willy Boly returns from suspension for this tie and with no fresh injury concerns, Nuno can name almost his strongest XI for this home fixture. Forest have been renowned for their strong home form since being promoted to top flight, yet they are aiming to end a sequence of four consecutive defeats at the City Ground.
Man United
Whatever Erik Ten Haag said at half time on Boxing Day appeared to do the trick. The Dutchman will have been delighted with his side’s response to going into the break two goals down to high-flying Aston Villa. United are still frustratingly inconsistent and have won just two of their last six games. Their abject performance against West Ham was followed by a limp first half display, before suddenly upping the ante in the second half and coming out after the break as a team revived.
Their away form has also been inconsistent this season and they followed up four consecutive victories on the road by taking just a point from their subsequent three trips.
Despite seemingly being ‘in crisis’ for the majority of the campaign, they remain just five points shy of the top six (at the time of writing), although with a tough trip to Aston Villa and a testing visit to Molineux, they cannot afford to drop any more points here.
Rasmus Hojlund is finally off the mark in the Premier League and although the summer signing has notched in the UCL, he will be pleased to have broken his duck in the top flight.
There are plenty of injury doubts for the visitors including Luke Shaw, Harry Maguire and Anthony Martial.
Head to Head
These two sides played out a cracking 90 minutes back in late August. Forest went 2-0 up inside the first four minutes before Christian Eriksen’s strike halved the deficit. Joe Worrall’s dismissal made it difficult to the visitors to hold onto their lead and they were finally undone by Bruno Fernandes’ 76th minute penalty.
The Red Devils have a terrific record against this opposition and have won the last 11 encounters. This is a record which goes all the way back to 1995 when Eric Cantona’s equaliser cancelled out Paul McGregor’s opener.
Key Betting Stats
- Just 33% of United’s away games have featured three or more goals.
- United have failed to find the back of the net in each of their last three away trips
- United haven’t conceded a first half goal away from home since October 21st.
- Nottingham Forest have scored exactly 1 or 2 goals in 7 of their 9 home matches
- The Tricky Trees have kept just a single clean sheet at home so far this season
- Forest are quick starters. 23% of their goals have been notched in the first 10 minutes.
Match Prediction
It’s hard to know which Manchester United are going to turn up for this one. Nevertheless, Forest will have a renewed confidence entering this one and that should make for a very interesting and high-scoring game.
Winning Combo
Over 2.5 Goals and BTTS
Evens with Bet365
Best Bookmaker
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