Sean Dyche takes cost of his first Premier League residence recreation as Nottingham Forest head coach in opposition to a Manchester United facet who’ve received three video games in a row for the primary time underneath head coach Ruben Amorim.
BBC Sport examines a few of the key themes forward of Saturday’s conflict on the Metropolis Floor.
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United successful with confidence
Amorim places United’s upturn in fortunes all the way down to certainly one of soccer’s most beneficial commodities – confidence.
Following the 4-2 win in opposition to Brighton at Previous Trafford final weekend, Amorim mentioned: “I believe (the gamers) are extra assured.
“I believe the very best recreation we did this season was in opposition to Arsenal (a 1-0 defeat) however then, if you end up just a little bit extra assured, when you’ve gotten a unique spirit, generally you’ve gotten just a little little bit of luck in sure moments of the sport that provide help to to win.”
From matchday three onwards, solely Arsenal have picked up extra factors than United’s 15, whereas Amorim’s facet are the main scorers within the division throughout this era with 14 objectives.
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A change in focus to extra direct assaults has helped United’s trigger in latest weeks – significantly utilising lengthy balls from goalkeeper Senne Lammens, who has changed Altay Bayindir over the past three matches.
United have switched techniques to play lengthy extra typically in latest matches [BBC]
Bryan Mbeumo’s return to kind has additionally underpinned United’s rise to sixth within the Premier League desk.
The £65m summer time signing’s brace in opposition to Brighton made it three objectives in two matches following one in his opening seven league appearances since becoming a member of from Brentford.
Solely Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah have been concerned in additional Premier League objectives in 2025 than Mbeumo’s 20 and the ahead’s kind is one other instance of the growing confidence at Previous Trafford.
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Dyche misplaced his first Premier League recreation as Forest boss 2-0 at Bournemouth final Sunday.
Whereas Dyche later mentioned that Forest had been unable to dwell with Bournemouth bodily, his facet’s method on the Vitality Stadium mirrored techniques usually related to the previous Everton and Burnley supervisor.
Forest performed 16.9% of their passes lengthy in opposition to the Cherries, far increased than their common of 8.5% underneath Ange Postecoglou, whereas goalkeeper Matz Sels performed 25 lengthy passes versus Bournemouth, probably the most by a Forest participant in a recreation this season.
For the reason that begin of 2024-25, Dyche’s groups (Forest and Everton) have performed extra lengthy balls than some other Premier League facet and recorded the fewest sequences of 10 passes or extra.
Forest boss Sean Dyche is thought for favouring direct techniques [BBC]
Such an method might properly swimsuit a squad used to taking part in direct soccer underneath former boss Nuno Espirito Santo to nice success, however Forest’s failure to attain in Dyche’s opening league outing is a well-known downside for his or her supervisor.
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Dyche has now seen his groups fail to attain in 10 of his final 14 Premier League video games, together with 9 with Everton.
Amongst managers to take cost of 150 video games in Premier League historical past, Dyche’s goals-per-game ratio of 0.97 is the bottom of all of them.