Our third new manager Scout Report of the season – and our second one about Nottingham Forest! Even the other article concerned a head coach who had recently left the City Ground…
Yes, Ange Postecoglou is gone after the shortest managerial stint in Premier League history. Into the Forest hot seat comes Sean Dyche, who joins on a contract running till summer 2027.
He inherits a team sitting 18th in the table and a squad now almost completely overlooked by active Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers.
So, can Dyche transform Forest’s fortunes and put the likes of Chris Wood (£7.3m) and Murillo (£5.3m) back on the FPL radar? This Scout Report outlines the task that awaits.
GOOD FOR SELS?
Dyche-era Burnley tended to concede a lot of shots but not nearly as many ‘big chances’, so there were plenty of clean sheets and save points to go around.
It led to the likes of Nick Pope (£5.2m) and Tom Heaton (£4.0m) racking up some tidy FPL scores, with Pope’s return of 170 points in 2019/20 – from a starting price of £4.5m – a memorable one.
There was even mitigation for a porous 2018/19 campaign, with Dyche later admitting that he had underestimated the effect of European football on his squad: an uncharacteristically high 41 goals had been conceded by the halfway point of that season.
His defensive record at Everton was even better, with the Toffees joint-second for clean sheets in 2023/24, Dyche’s one full season in charge. Jordan Pickford (£5.5m) ended up as FPL’s top-scoring ‘keeper that year.
All in all, five of his last six full campaigns as manager have resulted in his team keeping 10+ clean sheets.
DYCHE’S MANAGERIAL DEFENSIVE STATS
| Season | Goals conceded (rank) | Clean sheets (rank) | Shots conceded (rank) | Shots in box conceded (rank) | Big chances conceded (rank) | Exp goals conceded (xGC) (rank) |
| 2016/17 | 55 (11th) | 10 (=11th) | 672 (19th) | 369 (18th) | 52 (7th) | n/a |
| 2017/18 | 39 (6th) | 12 (7th) | 570 (19th) | 330 (18th) | 58 (8th) | 52.36 (13th) |
| 2018/19 | 68 (16th) | 8 (=12th) | 653 (20th) | 387 (19th) | 84 (15th) | 62.69 (19th) |
| 2019/20 | 50 (=9th) | 15 (3rd) | 539 (=14th) | 320 (11th) | 64 (=6th) | 50.62 (8th) |
| 2020/21 | 55 (15th) | 11 (=11th) | 570 (18th) | 358 (18th) | 73 (=12th) | 55.56 (15th) |
| 2021/22* | 44 (11th) | 7 (10th) | 485 (19th) | 315 (18th) | 54 (10th) | 46.22 (15th) |
| 2022/23** | 29 (13th) | 5 (6th) | 256 (13th) | 174 (14th) | 43 (=14th) | 32.86 (18th) |
| 2023/24 | 51 (4th) | 13 (=2nd) | 538 (12th) | 364 (13th) | 80 (=5th) | 56.07 (6th) |
| 2024/25*** | 25 (7th) | 7 (3rd) | 252 (14th) | 175 (13th) | 53 (14th) | 26.86 (8th) |
*up to Gameweek 32, the point of his sacking at Burnley
**from Gameweek 22, the point of his appointment at Everton
***up to Gameweek 20, the point of his sacking at Everton
A good omen for Matz Sels (£4.9m) and the Forest backline, then, who are still without a clean sheet in 2025/26?
POSSIBLE DEFCON BOOST
It’s not just clean sheets that the Tricky Trees’ defence can look forward to.
In that aforementioned 2023/24 campaign, Dyche’s centre-half pairing of James Tarkowski (£5.5m) and Jarrad Branthwaite (£5.3m) would have delivered a combined 70 defensive contribution (DefCon) points had those been in existence:
Above: Defenders sorted by the percentage of 2023/24 appearances in which they would have banked DefCon points
Furthermore, Tarkowski hit the DefCon threshold in 57.9% of his starts (second-best among FPL defenders) in Gameweeks 1-20 of 2024/25 before Dyche got the boot.
Forest defenders would have been big hits for DefCon points last season, with Murillo banking a hypothetical 38 of them. Can Dyche get his new backline clearing, blocking and tackling everything like they did under Nuno Espirito Santo in 2024/25? History suggests so.
As for midfielders, Idrissa Gana Gueye (£5.4m) would have bagged DefCon points in 50% of his starts under Dyche in 2023/24. A possible positive portent for Elliot Anderson (£5.4m)?
REUNITING WITH WOOD
Is this pretty much the perfect appointment for Wood?
His game-time was threatened under Postecoglou, who was handing more and more minutes to Igor Jesus (£5.8m); the Brazilian certainly fitted the more mobile centre-forward role that the Aussie historically favoured.
But now, Wood is reunited with a manager who loves a big man up top. Heck, sometimes even two strikers in unison in a 4-4-2.
It was a fruitful partnership between the Kiwi forward and Dyche. In each of Dyche’s last four seasons in charge at Turf Moor, Wood hit double figures for goals:
Bear in mind that this was a Burnley side short on investment and mostly fighting a yearly battle to stay up.
WIDER ATTACKING CONCERNS
While Dyche’s love of a talismanic big man up top is potentially good news for Wood, the new Forest boss is not exactly renowned for his attacking style.
Burnley never scored more than 45 goals in a single Premier League season under Dyche, while they were generally bottom-half material for most of the key metrics listed below.
And in 2023/24, Dyche’s one full season in charge of Everton, the Toffees were ranked a miserable 19th for goals scored – although profligacy was as much to blame as a lack of chances.
DYCHE’S MANAGERIAL ATTACKING STATS
| Season | Goals scored (rank) | Shots (rank) | Shots in the box (rank) | Big chances (rank) | Expected goals (xG) (rank) |
| 2016/17 | 39 (17th) | 392 (18th) | 214 (19th) | 38 (17th) | n/a |
| 2017/18 | 36 (15th) | 378 (=15th) | 245 (12th) | 43 (=18th) | 32.80 (18th) |
| 2018/19 | 45 (=14th) | 360 (20th) | 253 (16th) | 67 (13th) | 45.19 (15th) |
| 2019/20 | 43 (12th) | 387 (18th) | 264 (=15th) | 80 (7th) | 48.47 (11th) |
| 2020/21 | 33 (18th) | 384 (17th) | 234 (17th) | 56 (16th) | 39.97 (16th) |
| 2021/22* | 25 (19th) | 307 (19th) | 191 (18th) | 39 (17th) | 28.66 (18th) |
| 2022/23** | 19 (16th=) | 231 (9th) | 150 (11th) | 37 (11th) | 25.16 (11th) |
| 2023/24 | 40 (19th) | 507 (11th) | 329 (12th) | 90 (10th) | 54.90 (12th) |
| 2024/25*** | 15 (19th) | 216 (15th) | 141 (16th) | 28 (20th) | 18.33 (18th) |
*up to Gameweek 32, the point of his sacking at Burnley
**from Gameweek 22, the point of his appointment at Everton
***up to Gameweek 20, the point of his sacking at Everton
No midfielder scored more than three goals in any of Dyche’s campaigns at Burnley.
Abdoulaye Doucoure did net on seven occasions for Everton in 2023/24, a respectable tally if not Boys’ Own stuff.
SET-PIECE PROWESS
Dyche-led sides tend to excel at set plays.
In his last two seasons at Everton, the Toffees were ranked second for set pieces. In fact, a whopping 50% of the goals they scored over these campaigns came from dead-ball situations.
Remember that Burnley/Everton were never ranked higher than 12th for overall goals scored in any of the below seasons.
DYCHE’S MANAGERIAL SET-PIECE STATS
| Set-piece goals (rank) | |
| 2016/17 | 12 (11th=) |
| 2017/18 | 9 (17th) |
| 2018/19 | 16 (2nd=) |
| 2019/20 | 14 (5th=) |
| 2020/21 | 9 (11th=) |
| 2021/22* | 6 (7th) |
| 2022/23** | 4 (15th=) |
| 2023/24 | 19 (2nd) |
| 2024/25*** | 8 (2nd=) |
*up to Gameweek 32, the point of his sacking at Burnley
**from Gameweek 22, the point of his appointment at Everton
***up to Gameweek 20, the point of his sacking at Everton
FINAL THOUGHTS
We’re almost certainly not going to get free-flowing attacking football with Dyche in the Forest hotseat. However, many of us would settle for a return to last season: a reliable, DefCon-amassing defence and an old-fashioned forward banging in the goals.
In that respect, Dyche feels far more like a natural successor to Nuno than Postecoglou ever did.
With Forest currently clean sheet-less and ranked 20th for big chances conceded, expect the bulk of the initial work to be on going back to basics off the ball.
As for who might prosper in FPL in a Dyche-led Forest squad, there’ll be hopes that Sels can become the latest goalkeeper to benefit from the ample save/bonus point opportunities and clean sheets that Burnley/Everton custodians enjoyed under their former boss. The same goes for Murillo and Milenkovic, factoring in set plays and DefCon.
We may see a renaissance for Wood, too, although he’s 34 this December and not getting any younger.
There are plenty of caveats. European distractions are one. A bloated squad – especially further forward – is another. It might take some time before we deduce who Dyche trusts.
The biggest reason not to assume a quick fix? The two managerial changes we’ve seen already in 2025/26. Ange wanted to bring attacking football to the City Ground; he was gone after a month. Nuno was meant to shore up the West Ham defence (and he might yet) but we’ve just witnessed a horrendous Hammers display.
As for Forest’s fixtures, it’s a case of watching and waiting in Gameweek 9 as Bournemouth are in great form. Thereafter, it’s not a bad run through to Christmas with the exception of Gameweek 12.
Should the early signs look positive, then we might see some rekindling of FPL interest in Forest for this run.
