Sir Alex Ferguson Challenge | Part 7 | Premier League Title Defence

The streets of Nottingham were painted red as Forest fans flocked to see their heroes parade the Premier League trophy for the first time in club history. That saw us tick off another objective of this Sir Alex Ferguson Challenge, winning the title one season earlier than the great man.

Our improved financial position saw the board pay off all outstanding debts then spend £27m on enlarging the City Ground by 7,424 seats to a 38,000-capacity stadium. The finances were boosted by selling midfielders Brandon Donaldson and James McAtee to Everton and Middlesbrough for £23m and £4m and Lorenzo Lucca, who only played five games on loan at Napoli, to Monaco for £8.5m. But big money came in on deadline day as winger Andreja Dunderski moved to Bayern for a club record £83m.

In their place came a potential superstar in Luís Pereira, who’s probably best suited as a midfielder but can play wide or up front, for £47m from Benfica. He was joined by two more midfield prospects in Guillaume Esnault for £4m rising to £9m from Young Boys and Agustín Cicchetti for £3.7m from Vélez. Another big sale followed in January as we moved on stalwart right-back Neco Williams to Spurs for £45m then added an exciting striker talent in Benjamin Byrvang for just £10.5m from København.

We’re of course sticking with the title-winning tactic. Pereira will compete with homegrown Johnny O’Hanlon for the midfield spot, Salvador Ortiz steps up at left-back, and Amílcar Silva, Ivanildo Gomes and Danilo Vilar will fight for the striker role.

Title Defence Begins

We’re still only fancied to finish in 8th with odds of 33/1 to defend our title. Chelsea are favourites at 2/1 followed by Man City (7/2), Liverpool (4/1) and Arsenal (9/1).

The season began with our first Community Shield, which we were a little unlucky to lose 2-1 despite having more shots. And a week later, we had a chance at revenge as we travelled to City on the opening day, but this time lost 3-1. The 1-0 machine of Forest last season returned as Reiss Nelson scored the only goal at home to Brentford before we nicked a draw at West Ham, Pereira scored his first goal as our poor form against Newcastle continued, and O’Hanlon made it three consecutive 1-1 draws at Everton.

Those draws kicked off a 10-game unbeaten streak before a trip to Liverpool, who we’d still only beaten once in 18 attempts. And that trend continued with a 2-1 defeat. But our season swung on a two-week spell of three home games in December that began with Amílcar’s brace inspiring a 2-1 win over Man UFC before a thrilling 4-3 defeat of Chelsea led by two Nelson assists and Amílcar scoring the only goal against 12th-place Man City that sent us top for the first time. That form had been driven by Pereira, whose contributions were recognised by him becoming Forest’s first European Golden Boy winner.

Champions League

We got a fairly tricky league phase draw including a trip to Real Madrid. We began at home to Sporting and Pereira and a Gomes brace sealed a 3-2 win. The trip to Santiago Bernabéu followed and Madrid started brightly and scored two early goals, but a half-time ticking off changed the game and Essugo and Amílcar nicked a hard-earned point. Another away day followed at former winger Ângelo’s Monaco and we showed him what he was missing as Amílcar’s brace led a 3-0 win.

The good European form continued as winger Jevon Simons’ hat-trick inspired a 6-1 hammering of Servette before a 2-2 with Dortmund in the first game at the expanded City Ground and Pereira earned a 1-1 at home to Bayern. After Christmas, Pereira’s winner earned a 2-1 victory at Club Brugge before an Amílcar double secured a 3-2 win at Mainz. And that snuck us into the top eight on the final day. But our run didn’t go on much longer as we lost 3-1 at Dortmund then drew 1-1 at home to exit in the round of 16.

Another Title Challenge

The good form in December sparked a 12-match unbeaten streak, including Byrvang scoring the goal of the month 11 minutes into his debut in a 2-1 win over Leeds on New Year’s Day. A 4-1 defeat at Villa saw West Ham climb above us to the top of the league but a week later Danilo and Gomes downed Arsenal 2-1. A week later, a huge game saw Liverpool come to town and Simons’ second-half strike saw us gain just a second win of this save and first in five years over the Merseysiders.

West Ham had two games in hand but lost both, leaving us four points clear going into the final five games of our title defence. And the top five looked somewhat unusual going into the final days of the title race.

Game 1 – Fulham (13th, home): We started the run-in well as first-half strikes by Essugo and Byrvang helped us ease to a 2-0 win. West Ham lost at Man City so we moved seven points clear.

Game 2 – Newcastle (5th, away): We fell behind early at Newcastle but Simons quickly levelled and we fired into gear with goals by O’Hanlon and Nelson. However, the defence fell apart, conceding three goals in 17 minutes to lose 4-3.

Game 3 – West Ham (2nd, home): A potential title decider saw the Hammers come to town. And the poor defensive display at Newcastle continued as we conceded twice in the first 20 minutes and never recovered, massively shifting the momentum back towards West Ham and the chasing pack.

Game 4 – Leicester (10th, away): A huge game followed as we went to Leicester with a chance to clinch the title on our local rivals’ turf. But the poor performances continued as we created next to nothing and crawled to a dire 0-0. That put West Ham in control and they delivered by winning both their games in hand to go top heading into the final day, while Chelsea had snuck into contention.

Game 5 – Everton (18th, home): We entertained Everton, who needed to win to avoid relegation, while West Ham visited 9th-place Arsenal and Chelsea went to Liverpool. We started brightly but continued to miss chances, only for the ref to avoid Everton a dodgy penalty… that Ismaila Sarr put wide! That seemed to finally wake our team up as Simons sent Byrvang in for the opener on 41 minutes. We continued to dominate and eventually doubled our lead as Zeze converted from a free-kick. But we needed a favour from elsewhere, and West Ham were delivering as they still being held 0-0. But Arsenal scored on 71 minutes and doubled their lead four minutes later. We held on to win 2-0 as West Ham lost 3-0 to hand us the title.

Nottingham Forest defended their Premier League title!

We stumbled across the line to wrap up the league title with 77 points, which is just two more than Man UFC’s all-time lowest winning points total from 1997 and easily the lowest of this save. We scored the same number of goals as last season (63) but conceded 16 more We also didn’t have any players in the key contributors, with Amílcar our top goalscorer on just 10 and Nelson getting 9 assists.

Another Title But Improvement Required

This season was a successful one, but we were very lucky to win a really poor Premier League season. And we lacked the cutting edge and attacking threat to really compete at the top level. It’s pretty clear that we need more goals as Amílcar was our top scorer with 20 in 46 followed by Pereira (11), Gomes (10), Simons (9), Zeze (8) and O’Hanlon (6). Nelson topped the assists with 13 followed by Jovan Sljivic (11), O’Hanlon (10) and Lassaad Kadri and Simons (7).