Opta gives Arsenal a 58.3% chance of victory when Mikel Arteta’s side visit Nottingham Forest on Sunday, with the hosts having collected only five points during Oliver Glasner’s difficult opening weeks in charge.
Manchester City sit top of the Premier League after winning their first six matches, but defending champions Arsenal are three points behind and have dropped points only away at Brighton. City could also face a penalty after being found guilty of breaching Premier League rules.
Across 10,000 Opta simulations, Forest won 20.4% of the time and 21.3% ended in draws. Arsenal are also marginal favourites in the 2026-27 title prediction, with a 44.7% chance compared with Manchester City’s 42.5%.
The recent head-to-head record offers Forest little encouragement. The last two Premier League meetings at the City Ground finished 0-0, despite 40 attempts on goal between the teams. Forest have won only one of their past 11 league games against Arsenal, drawing two and losing eight.
That victory came in May 2023, when Taiwo Awoniyi’s goal secured a 1-0 win. The result guaranteed Forest another season in the Premier League and mathematically confirmed Manchester City as champions. Forest have failed to score in their past four meetings with Arsenal, although Awoniyi also scored in a 2-1 home defeat in January 2024.
Forest’s chances have not been converted
Glasner’s Premier League record has deteriorated since his Crystal Palace team beat Fulham 2-1 on 7 December last year while sitting fourth. He later guided Palace to Conference League glory in May before leaving to join Forest, but has overseen only five wins in his past 29 top-flight matches, alongside nine draws and 15 defeats.
Since that sequence began on matchday 16 of 2025-26, his 17% winning percentage is the second-lowest among managers to take charge of at least 20 Premier League games. Only former Wolves boss Rob Edwards, on 13%, has a worse record.
Forest’s 3-1 defeat at Selhurst Park last Sunday was particularly painful. They had 24 shots, recorded 3.36 expected goals (xG) and created eight big chances – the highest total by a losing team in a Premier League match since Blackburn Rovers against Newcastle United in February 2012.
Their attacking statistics this season are otherwise encouraging. Forest’s averages of 17.7 shots, 1.72 xG, 27.3 touches in the opposition box and 3.5 big chances per match are all their best across the past five campaigns. Yet they have scored with only 4.7% of their shots and have the league’s worst xG difference, scoring five times from 10.3 xG (-5.3).
Dan Ndoye is Forest’s only player with two league goals, while Liam Delap, Igor Jesus and Morgan Gibbs-White have one each. Delap missed a clear opportunity against Palace and has converted just 7.1% of 14 attempts, with only two on target.
Arsenal’s resilience compensates for set-piece drought
Arsenal recovered from a 3-0 loss at Brighton by coming from behind to beat Leeds United 2-1, with Riccardo Calafiori and Bruno Guimaraes scoring. They have fallen 1-0 behind three times in their past four league matches, matching the number in their previous 25 combined, but have won two of those games. Their six points from losing positions is the league’s highest total.
Arsenal have won 14 of their past 17 Premier League games, losing three, and nine victories came by a single goal. They have had 17 one-goal wins over the past two seasons, more than any club in Europe’s big five leagues.
Their set-piece threat, however, has yet to appear this season. After scoring 25 non-penalty set-piece goals last term, including a record 19 from corners, Arsenal are still without one after six league games in 2026-27. It is their longest such sequence since seven matches between January and March 2025, and the first time since 2011-12 that they have failed to score from a set-piece in each of their opening six matches.
They instead scored three times from open play in Tuesday’s 3-0 Champions League victory over Lille, through Jurrien Timber, Eberechi Eze and Bukayo Saka. Saka now has 19 goals in major European competition for Arsenal, second only to Thierry Henry’s 42, while his nine Champions League assists rank third behind Henry’s 16 and Cesc Fabregas’ 14.
Players to watch
Morgan Gibbs-White has created 17 Premier League chances, fewer only than Brighton’s Pascal Gross, and leads the division for open-play chances created (15), big chances created (seven) and expected assists (1.87 xA).
For Arsenal, Bruno Guimaraes has scored in three of his five league appearances as a substitute across the past two seasons, scoring three times overall, including against Leeds. Both of his Arsenal goals have come from the bench; Leandro Trossard is the only other Gunners player to score his first three Premier League goals for the club as a substitute.
