Nottingham Forest need to fix Chris Wood to save their Champions League dream ...Middle East

SELHURST PARK — Nottingham Forest need something. Nuno Espirito Santo thinks they have it. And he thinks they showed it in four second-half minutes at Selhurst Park.

The Forest boss said the “character” his side showed after going behind, by fighting back and equalise almost immediately after conceding, is proof they have the spirit for the battle to qualify for the Champions League.

They are currently sixth, two points outside qualification, but the equation remains simple if they just win out: three wins in three games and they are in. If they falter, it becomes more complicated.

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But there is another simple fact that Espirito Santo will not address but that anyone who has watched Forest this season knows is an uncomfortable truth.

Chris Wood has stopped scoring goals.

His first 18 goals came in just 25 Premier League appearances this season. In the next eight games, he has managed just one, a run that has encompassed Forest falling out the Champions League places, dropping 16 crucial points along the way.

Without Wood, Forest’s form is a house made of straw.

A season better than Salah’s

First of all, Wood has been on a hot streak that has defied statistical models. The 33-year-old has an expected league goals total of 11.4 this season, yet he has bagged 19, outperforming the data by a whopping 7.2 goals.

By comparison, the relentless Mo Salah has 28 from an expected 24, still outperforming but by a much smaller margin.

Wood’s two shots against Palace were both blocked, one in the first half when the angle was always closing and one more clear-cut in the second half when he took a couple of touches allowing Maxime Lacroix time to get a foot in front.

Espirito Santo knows this. But he also knows better than to shake the confidence of a striker before three effective cup finals.

“Offensive players, strikers, you know better than me, it’s very difficult to sustain,” Espirito Santo said when asked what he would do about Wood’s failing form.

“But we cannot get take away what Chris has been giving to us. It’s huge. It’s magnificent.”

“It’s not only Chris [we need]. It’s all the team.

“The last these three games we are going to need them all. We’re going to need the best of each one of them.”

Wood certainly cannot score goals alone. No one can, but he in particular is a finisher rather than a creator, one who has scored 17 of his 19 Premier League goals this season with a first-time finish. Some are penalties and headers, by definition taken without a touch, but nevertheless it speaks of an instinctive finisher and a team playing at pace.

So he needs the players around him to keep giving him the kind of chances where he can meet a floated cross at the back post or pull back from a defender and meet a low pass from the byline. Most commonly this season, that has been Anthony Elanga, the former United winger who has found a new lease of life as the counter-attacker-in-chief at the City Ground.

But he too is struggling for confidence, it seems. His first-half shot on Monday when one-on-one lacked power and conviction, while his pass after the break to Wood was underhit, forcing him into extra touches.

With Callum Hudson-Odoi out injured, Elanga’s pace on the break and connection with Wood is even more important.

Forest are the lowest possession team in the Premier League but when they do get the ball, they need to get it to their striker: the data shows that as his goalscoring form has gone down, so has his number of involvements in the game.

Just give it to him? It’s perhaps not as simple as that, but the data seems to show it will help.

‘It’s very, very hard’

But Forest also seem to lack a clarity of conviction. Some of their most devastating counter-attacking football looks entirely free of thought, but after a gruelling schedule of games, thanks to a cup run that no one will regret, that mental energy to think freely seems to have deserted them. And Espirito Santo virtually admitted as much.

“We are pushing the players, not only physically, but mentally, in this big fight that we are involved in. We are proud to be in it,” he added.

“Character, confidence, controlling anxiety, controlling nerves: all these aspects are very important.

“We go more or less in the cycle of the teams that are competing in Europe [by playing twice a week].

“It’s very hard. Very, very hard. It’s very demanding on the players. That’s what I mean, we are pushing them physically and mentally because we are involved in a fight that nobody expect us to be.”

Just listen to that roar Chris Wood opens the scoring for Nottingham Forest through a perfectly executed break @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/pFyMCc3zLl

Not least the statisticians, including Olivier Glasner, who made reference afterwards to the 2.34 expected goals his side created against Forest on Monday night. The away side managed just 0.64, but escaped Selhurst Park with a point, despite Ebrechi Eze hitting the bar and Eddie Nketiah’s chalked-off goal both taking Palace to within inches of late victory.

“We’re gonna need legs, gonna need the energy, we’re gonna need some luck,” said Santo.

They’re also going to need some Chris Wood magic. They have to hope he has a little left.

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