Arsenal vs. Nottingham Forest match thread: keep choppin' wood

Today at 09:24 AM

The Gunners host the early season surprise Tricky Trees.

Arsenal host Nottingham Forest at the Emirates as the Premier League gets back in action after the November international break. So starts the meaty portion of the season — other than the two week(ish) break in early January (Dubai Week Part Deux?), the Gunners have regular matches from now through mid-March. Hopefully the brief time off has given Mikel Arteta's side a chance to regroup and recover because Arsenal have virtually no wiggle room left in the Premier League if they want to challenge for the title.

Nottingham Forest are the biggest surprise of the Premier League thus far. They finished last season in 17th place, above the relegation zone by six points. They currently sit tied with Arsenal for 5th on 19 points. Nuno Espirito Santo's side's turnaround starts at the back. Forest have conceded just 10 goals through 11 matches. They play a well-organized deep block and look to hit on the counter. Chris Wood is tied second in the Premier League with 8 goals. Thus far, the formula has worked quite well — they handed Liverpool their only loss of the young season.

The Gunners need to turn around their results. They simply cannot continue to drop points and stay in the Premier League title conversation. At 9 points adrift, it's already going to be a tall order. But I'm not sure that Arsenal need to change much to manage it. By several different statistical models, Arsenal have been the best or one of the best teams in the PL this season. It's just been bad luck, injuries, questionable refereeing decisions, and an assortment of other odd things that have kept their results from matching their quality.

Hence the "keep choppin' wood" — Arsenal need to stay at it. Continue doing the things they've been doing and hope the variance shifts from heavily negative to, at the very least, mostly neutral.

Mikel Arteta and Arsenal will be without Ben White for a "couple months" after he had surgery to fix a lingering knee issue during the break. Kieran Tierney has returned to training but isn't match fit, and let's be real — he doesn't factor into the plans anyway). Takehiro Tomiyasu will still be out for a while and is away from the team to recover. Declan Rice is dealing with a broken toe but fit enough to make the bench.

Nottingham Forest will be without Danilo and Ibrahim Sangare, both of whom have been out for a while. They're both players who you'd expect to factor into Nuno's lineups when healthy, but Forest have done just fine without them. The Portuguese manager suggested that other players were dealing with minor niggles and knocks but didn't mention any names. UPDATE: Morgan Gibbs-White misses out.

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Arsenal - Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori, Jorginho, Merino, Odegaard, Trossard, Saka, Jesus

Nottingham Forest - Sels, Murillo, Awoniyi, Hudson-Odoi, Dominguez, Ward-Prowse, Moreno, Elanga, Yates, Milenkovic, Aina

WHO: Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest
WHAT: Premier League Match Day 12
WHEN: Saturday, November 23rd, 10:00am EST/7:00am PST/3:00pm GMT
WHERE: The Emirates Stadium, London
HOW TO WATCH: Streaming live on the Peacock app

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