The kind of victory that champions grind out, both reigning and prospective.
Arsenal’s narrow win over Nottingham Forest was a tight, often tedious affair but the Gunners, as they regularly did in 2025/26, found a way to get over the line.
Manchester City may be the early-season hares but regardless of what happens with the courtrooms and the commissions, Mikel Arteta’s tortoises continue to chart their own highly effective course.
Here are our Scout Notes from the City Ground.
GIBBS-WHITE INJURY LATEST
Before we get to the action, a word on one player who wasn’t even involved on Sunday.
The roughly 12% owned Morgan Gibbs-White (£7.9m) didn’t feature, having struggled with a muscle injury in the lead-up to Gameweek 7.
It sounds very much like he’ll be fit for Friday’s clash with Ipswich Town, however.
“He was very close to playing today. He said he was fine, but he felt it a little bit in a few situations. He felt his muscle and then I decided not to play him. I didn’t want to take any risk, and we can’t [afford] to lose him, maybe because it was a reinjury, for four, five, six weeks. That’s why I decided not to play him.
“I expect him being back for Ipswich game.” – Oliver Glasner on Morgan Gibbs-White, in his post-match presser
“I didn’t want to take any risk. He felt it a little bit. I think if this is the final game of the year, he would have played, but we play in five days, we play at Ipswich, and I didn’t want to take any risk. So, I decided not to play him and, let’s say not rest him, but prepare him in the best way for the next games because we know then also that Morgan, in these kind of games, can have an impact to help us.” – Oliver Glasner on Morgan Gibbs-White, to in-house media
Gibbs-White is being sold at a fair old pace, and dropped in price on Sunday night.
However, up against an Ipswich side ranked 19th for goals conceded (15) and still without a clean sheet to their name, you’d question the wisdom of selling him now – even acknowledging the attacking limitations of this Forest side, as we’re about to do.
TWO SIDES BETTER AT THE BACK THAN GOING FORWARD
Heading into this match, Arsenal and Forest were ranked 1st and 2nd for fewest expected goals conceded (xGC) in 2026/27.
Predictably, then, this game was a bit of a slog.
Goalmouth action was few and far between, with just one Opta-defined ‘big chance’ recorded. That was Gabriel Magalhaes‘ (£7.9m) set-piece header midway through the second half; even that wasn’t a bona fide sitter.
Arsenal, in fact, only had one shot on target all game – and that was substitute Noni Madueke‘s (£6.2m) deflected winner. Forest had just two, both comfortably saved by David Raya (£6.1m).
More praise for Arsenal’s defence, then (there were excellent late blocks from Ezri Konsa (£4.6m) and Declan Rice (£7.3m) to preserve the lead), and a doff of the cap to Forest’s backline, who while haven’t had much reward in terms of clean sheets in 2026/27, seem to be on the right track defensively.
“Top, top performance defensively. So, not just defending the set pieces but then how few shots we gave them. We really defended this well.” – Oliver Glasner
“The win was not possible without them, because [Forest] have so much quality and physicality, having to constantly deal with what we predicted to be 50 balls in the air. I don’t know how many they had, but it would’ve been very close to that. And it’s not only that, it’s what happens after that ball and the consequences from that. To be on it constantly, every action delivered is very tough.” – Mikel Arteta on Ezri Konsa and Gabriel Magalhaes
OPEN-PLAY FC
Arsenal’s winner came from open play, extending the Gunners’ goalless drought from set pieces:
| GW1-7 (2025/26) | GW1-7 (2026/27) | |
|---|---|---|
| Goals from set pieces | 7 | 0 |
| Attempts from set pieces | 42 | 21 |
| Set-piece xG | 4.49 | 2.44 |
Still, Arteta isn’t too concerned, highlighting some near misses in the last week.
“Two nights [this week] we should have scored two. That’s it. Last year, those two chances, they were goals, but let’s keep generating that and they will come.” – Mikel Arteta
The best chance of the first half, indeed, was Kai Havertz‘s (£7.5m) off-target header from a set piece.
The German was otherwise quiet. As was Martin Odegaard (£6.8m). And so too was a shot-less Bukayo Saka (£9.6m), whose run of having a big chance in every match this season was finally ended.
More evidence of a solid display from the Forest rearguard, then.
Rice, incidentally, is now joint-second in the FPL table for assists (four) this term.
MURILLO UNFORTUNATE
On the subject of the Forest backline, Murillo (£5.5m) was unlucky.
Seeing a hard-earned clean sheet turn to dust via an unfortunate deflection, he nearly scored a superb equalising solo goal late on and finished just one contribution short of yet more DefCon points:
No defender can beat him for DefCon points (10) this season, nor can any positional peer better his 10 shots in the box.
A defender with real FPL potential, if the Tricky Trees can just start turning those decent stats into shut-outs.
DELAP DECENT
The only player to beat Murillo for shots at the City Ground on Saturday was Liam Delap (£5.5m). He was a real handful for Konsa and Gabriel.
The goalless run now extends to three, but the budget FPL forward continues to a) get chances (16 shots in the last four Gameweeks) and b) enjoy the support of his manager.
“Because we all, of course, judge the strikers by the goals they score but I think Liam Delap had an incredible performance today playing against Konza and Gabriel, potentially the best centre-back pair in the world at the moment, and he caused them really big problems.” – Oliver Glasner on Liam Delap
