Arsenal beat Nottingham Forest 1-0 at the City Ground on Sunday, thanks to a deflected 80th-minute strike from substitute Noni Madueke. It was Arsenal’s only shot on target all afternoon. The win keeps the reigning champions near the top of the Premier League table, while Forest, who have one win from Oliver Glasner’s first eight games in charge, remain in the relegation places.
Arsenal weren’t good, and they didn’t need to be. They only needed one shot to hit the target.
A Flat Display From the Champions
The City Ground match was tightly contested, with Arsenal dominating possession but struggling to create clear chances for long stretches. Forest defended resolutely, packing the midfield and playing something close to a 5-4-1 without the ball, with Liam Delap left alone up front. Nicolás Domínguez and Dan Ndoye dropped in to help James McAtee and Xaver Schlager, leaving no space for Bruno Guimarães and Martin Ødegaard to work in.
Arsenal’s best moments before the break came from set-pieces. Kai Havertz flashed a header wide from a Declan Rice free-kick, and a Bukayo Saka corner caused pinball in the Forest box. Saka was one of the few bright spots from open play on the right, and he was far better than Eberechi Eze on the other flank. Eze never got into the game and was taken off at halftime for Madueke.
Delap provided the other notable first-half moments: a deflected strike and a free-kick he won just before the break.
Forest Start the Second Half Better
The second half began with Forest in the ascendancy. Delap continued to probe, often drifting to the right, and Ndoye grew into the game, forcing Gabriel to sprint back and stop him racing through. The momentum was shifting toward the home side, and Mikel Arteta’s answer was a triple substitution with less than 30 minutes left, bringing on Jurriën Timber, Mikel Merino, and Viktor Gyökeres at once.
The trio added energy. Rice should have done much better when Timber’s cut-back found him inside the box, but he fired over the bar.
Madueke Breaks the Deadlock
The breakthrough came in the 80th minute. Madueke, on the left, cut inside and shot, and his effort deflected off Jair Cunha and past Matz Sels into the net. It was Arsenal’s only shot on target in the game, and it came with just ten minutes to go.
Even then, Arsenal didn’t kick on. Forest looked the more likely side to score late. Chris Wood wasted a great chance as a substitute, Murillo fired over, and Ezri Konsa had to make a great tackle to deny Delap.
What It Means
Arsenal’s season has now had several moments where the bench has bailed them out. The substitutes blew Lille away in midweek, and Guimarães was the hero off the bench against Leeds before that. Coming into this match, Arsenal had scored seven goals in the first halves of games and 14 after the break.
Madueke will hope to start when Arsenal travel to Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Tuesday. They’ll need to play far better than they did here. But perhaps that’s the mark of champions: finding a way to win on an off day, much like many of the games that secured Arsenal their first title in 22 years last season.
For Forest, the defeat is a bitter one. Glasner’s side battled well enough to deserve a point and wasted late chances, and they were missing the injured Morgan Gibbs-White, whose attacking threat they badly lacked. With one win from eight league games, they sit in the relegation places, though on this evidence they look too organized to stay there.
