Nottingham Forest's Tough Trip to Anfield: Can They Break the Streak?
Nottingham Forest head to Anfield on Saturday still empty-handed in the new Premier League season, but with one powerful reminder in their back pocket – they’ve won on each of their last two visits to this stadium.
Oliver Glasner’s side opened their league campaign with defeat to Leeds United and then slipped out of the Carabao Cup days later. Two games, two losses, no points, and a team still learning each other’s movements. The rebuild at the City Ground is real, and it’s happening under the spotlight.
Yet Anfield, of all places, has recently been kind to them. That streak offers a sliver of belief against opponents who rarely tolerate visitors.
Forest team news: new faces, familiar absences
Nicolo Savona and Ryan Yates remain out injured and will not feature. Their absence has already forced Glasner to accelerate his integration of summer signings, and two of them seized their chance in midweek.
Ousmane Diomande and Xaver Schlager both made their full debuts in the Carabao Cup tie and did enough to stay in the conversation for Anfield. Both are “pushing to retain their places” in the starting XI, and with no new fitness issues reported from that game, Glasner has little reason to dismantle the structure he’s trying to build.
He has been blunt about the scale of the job in front of him. Forest are being reshaped almost in real time, while many Premier League rivals lean on squads that have grown together over several seasons. Cohesion has to be manufactured quickly; points will not wait.
Shape of the side: a new spine for a daunting trip
All signs point to a back three of Murillo, Nikola Milenković and Diomande, a physically imposing and aggressive unit that Glasner will trust to absorb long spells without the ball. In front of them, a hard-running midfield four is expected: Ola Aina and Neco Williams patrolling the flanks, Ibrahim Sangaré and Schlager anchoring the centre.
That platform frees up Morgan Gibbs-White to do what he does best. Operating in the pocket behind the striker, he has either scored or assisted in half of Forest’s last six games at Anfield – a striking record in a stadium that usually swallows visiting playmakers. He is likely to be joined in those advanced pockets by Dan Ndoye, with Igor Jesus leading the line.
The predicted XI, in Glasner’s favoured 3-4-2-1, looks like this:
Sels; Murillo, Milenković, Diomande; Aina, Sangaré, Schlager, Williams; Gibbs-White, Ndoye; Igor Jesus.
It is a side built to suffer, counter and cling to those recent memories on Merseyside.
Kick-off, TV details and what’s at stake
The Premier League clash at Anfield kicks off at 12:30 on Saturday, 29 August 2026.
In the UK, the game will be shown live on TNT Sports 1 and TNT Sports Ultimate.
Forest arrive searching for their first points of the season, carrying a new-look squad and the weight of a rebuild into one of the hardest fixtures on the calendar. They also arrive with history on their side at this ground.
Which of those stories will define their afternoon?
