Immediately after the minimum victory against Wolves at home in the opening round of the Premier League 2023/24, MU lost 0-2 in the visit of Tottenham. This is not a surprising result because MU’s opponent is nonetheless a big name. It is worth discussing here that, in the match against Spurs, MU’s midfield was ineffective.
To solve that problem, coach Erik Ten Hag needs to make personnel adjustments. He has even more grounds to do that when rookie Mount even wants to play now. The advantage with coach Ten Hag is that if he dares to experiment, MU does not have to face too many risks. The reason is because rival Nottingham Forest is generally quite mediocre.
Despite having just won the newly promoted team Sheffield United 2-1, Nottingham Forest can’t therefore be confident in the upcoming visit to MU’s lair. Should know, before overcoming Sheffield United, Nottingham Forest went through 5 matches without knowing the smell of victory. In these 5 matches, they only scored 1 goal, conceded 10 times and had to receive 4 defeats.
In terms of head-to-head record, history is not in favor of Nottingham Forest either. The proof is that in the previous 82 meetings, they only won 24 times but lost 41 matches to MU. The remaining 17 times the two sides could not determine the winner or loser.
Through the official website, MU confirmed rookie midfielder Mason Mount has been injured and will miss the next 2 matches. The fact that Mount has to take a break for about a month will not necessarily be a disaster for MU, because in the past 2 rounds, the rookie from Chelsea has played very faintly. In addition to Mount, in the list of MU players having health problems, there are Shaw, Mainoo, Hojlund, Maguire, Malacia, Diallo and Heaton.
On the side of Nottingham Forest, 4 players have not yet recovered from their injuries, including Felipe, Richards, Hennessey and Aina, so they may be absent.
Expected lineups MU vs Nottingham Forest
MU (4-2-3-1): Onana; Wan-Bissaka, Varane, Martinez, Dalot; Casemiro, Eriksen, Antony, Fernandes, Grenache; Rashford.
Nottingham (3-4-3): Turner; Boly, McKenna, Mangala; Aurier, Worrall, Williams, Gibbs-White; Danilo, Awoniyi, Johnson.