Teams of the season Nuno Espirito Santo’s Nottingham Forest and Andoni Iraola’s Bournemouth doing it differently | football news

Manchester City’s slump has been the story of the first half of the season, while Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal are still hoping they can become the story of the second by lifting the title. But how about two teams in all?

Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth are in fourth and fifth place respectively at Christmas, exceeding resources and expectations. The most fascinating thing about this is not only that they managed to do it but com they managed to do it.

One of the criticisms of the Premier League in recent seasons has been a kind of orthodox approach, undoubtedly influenced by the success of Pep Guardiola. The game has tilted in the direction of their football as teams look for possession of the ball.

It seemed like 2024 was the year the culture wars came to football. Everyone had to have a vision of Ange Postecoglou. Meanwhile, Vincent Kompany, a Guardiola protégé, was appointed Bayern Munich manager despite relegation with Burnley.

Russell Martin seemed to see Southampton suffering the same fate as a price worth paying. “We have to believe in something.” He spoke not only of game principles but of values, attributing almost a moral element to them. Style not as a means but as an end in itself.

In this context, the rise of Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth seems as timely as it is revealing. Because these are two of that ever-shrinking group of clubs whose managers seem prepared to play a different kind of football to the rest.

In the era of possession, only Sean Dyche’s Everton see as little football as Forest. Bournemouth are not far ahead of them in possession stats. Both rank in the bottom three for passing sequences of 10 or more.

While Manchester City and Southampton stand alone as the teams with the slowest build-up – some would say the most patient – Nuno Espirito Santo’s Forest and Andoni Iraola’s Bournemouth are the two most direct teams in the Premier League .

talking with Sky Sports On this in October, Iraola said: “The first thing we try to do when we get the ball back is to play at number 9, because that’s usually when the opponent is less well positioned and you can find better spaces.”

Without waiting for the opposition to get fit again for Iraola. His teams passed quickly, a vertical game as some like to call it. It can be devastating for the opposition and exciting for its own supporters. Just ask those who traveled to Manchester United.

Another intriguing aspect of this is that while some of Forest and Bournemouth’s numbers are similar, other aspects of their game are very different. Both move the ball quickly up the pitch, but have different approaches to catching it.

Iraola lateral pressure high. “We’re getting a lot of balls back up the pitch this season.” They have had a shot on target as a result of a huge rotation of that pressing on 35 occasions this season, more times than any other team in the Premier League.

Nuno’s side does not press high. In fact, Forest allow the opposition to move the ball up the pitch more than any other team in the Premier League, another one of those two is an outlier. Opponents travel an average of 15.5 meters before being stopped.

Forest allow more passes through defensive action than any other team, they are content with these possession teams having the ball in areas where they can’t hurt them. Nuno’s plan is to finish the ball into an area where they can win it and then strike quickly.

He is a natural pragmatist. Speaking in 2024, Nuno said Sky Sports: “It’s not about more or less possession of the ball. I might have a really good idea, but do I think it’s going to work? Do I have the personnel to execute what I think?”

Asked what improvements he had wanted to implement in the team, he had sought to make Forest more compact, he explained. “Our organization, when we’re going to recover the ball, the distances between our players, we have to reduce those gaps even more.”

Iraola sees it differently. It wants to open games not close them. “Most of the games we win are the more open ones, where there are more chances, where we can exploit one on one on the outside and find bigger spaces.

And he added: “The better the opposition, the more risk you have to take if you want to press them. You know, sometimes people say: ‘They are very good, so we have to wait a little longer to press ‘. But that way you have no chance of getting the ball back.”

There is a rare intensity to Iraola’s Bournemouth and they love to turn competitions into a running game, making the pitch big. Only Ipswich have covered more ground than the Cherries so far this season. Only Tottenham average more sprints per game.

“We like to prioritize that kind of volume in our race because we think in games that are pretty close, where one little chance can make the difference, we’re not that good.” forest? Instead, Nuno’s team are the kings of the closed football match.

No team has won as many games by just one goal. No team has lost less. Keeping it tight is the mantra and this is reflected in his own running stats. They are in the bottom three for the sprints. Only Leicester have run fewer games than them this season.

Two teams with contrasting approaches but two teams with equally impressive results. And the fact that they do it differently to anyone else in the Premier League is cause for celebration, against the homogeneity of modern football.

The lesson of David and Goliath is ingrained enough in our culture to be included in the Old Testament. You can’t expect to beat stronger opposition by doing the same thing as them. The success of Nuno and Iraola is a new testament to that old truism.