Nottingham Forest vs Sheffield United Preview

After recording a narrow loss on the opening weekend, Nottingham Forest will look to get back to winning ways when they welcome Premier League returnees Sheffield United to the City Ground on Friday night.

The hosts were beaten 2-1 by Arsenal in their first league game last weekend. But that loss didn’t come for lack of effort on their part as they troubled the Gunners towards the end.

In the end, Taiwo Awoniyi’s late strike from an impressive assist by Anthony Elanga was only a consolation.

This weekend, they host a Sheffield United side they beat in the Championship playoffs one year ago on their way to gaining promotion to the top flight. While a lot has changed since then for both sides, the hosts will fancy their chances of winning here given that they haven’t lost to the Blades at the City Ground in a regular season league game since December 2008 (W3, D2).

Their three-match winning home PL run will also reinforce the belief that they will win their first point of the season here.

Meanwhile, Sheffield United also suffered a narrow loss on the opening weekend, with Crystal Palace beating them 1-0 in their first Premier League game since they went down two years ago.

Despite the loss, the visitors’ boss Paul Heckingbottom insisted that his new-look side “will only improve”.

But Heckingbottom hasn’t been helped by a raft of key player exits and arrivals at Bramall Lane over the summer. These changes certainly haven’t helped the Blades’ preparations upon their PL return.

Yet with an extra week allowing new faces to gel, Heckingbottom will see this as an opportunity to get off the mark for the season. The coach will also hope his side can regain that Friday feeling, as Sheffield United have lost just one of their last ten Friday-held games (W6, D3).

Interestingly, the Blades played Nottingham Forest twice in that run (W1, D1) and with the last seven of those ten games seeing the home side score exactly once, history would suggest some clinical Sheffield United finishing could see them claim the points.

Other fixtures taking place this week in the Premier League Fixtures:

Premier League Table