Premier League LIVE: Ange Postecoglou’s Nottingham Forest take on Arsenal

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The final minutes of the first 45 tick by as Anderson sees Gibbs-White and then fails to feed Gibbs-White, and Gyokeres racing onto an Eze cross but skewing his shot wide.

It’s hard to read his body language as all this is going down. Hands in pockets. A couple of facial twitches as if to indicate some inner dialogue. No gesticulating.

A few sarcastic remarks are already appearing on social media referencing his unfortunate injury record at Spurs. The vibe is “Ange is averaging an injury a day so far” and “Aina already out injured and now Murillo’s gone too? Welcome back Ange Postecoglou”.

Let’s just say Murillo’s injury did not occur as a result of relentless pressing.

Arsenal 1-0 Nottingham Forest after 43 minutes

And in spite of everything I’ve just written, that is an utterly fabulous finish from Zubimendi. A volley so aesthetically pleasing let’s hope we can grab a video so you can see it for yourself if you’re not watching the game.

It came from a corner, and then a clearance, and the Spaniard was positioned at the top of the box and ready for it. The home team had been close to scoring for a period. It was coming.

The victim in all this is Murillo, whose head Zubimendi’s volley lightly caressed on its way into the net but who had also made a tackle that had the centre-back limp from the field. Savona replaces him in the backline.

Arsenal 1-0 Nottingham Forest after 32 minutes

Martin Zubimendi of Arsenal scores his first goal for Arsenal.Credit: Getty Images

Biding its time, one assumes, until he’s had a chance to do more than introduce himself to his squad. We had evidence Postecoglou is willing to depart slightly from Plan A (and, should Plan A fail, doing Plan A better) during Spurs’ journey to that scrappy Europa League final win over Manchester United just before Daniel Levy sacked him.

And here he has so far stuck with his pre-match statement of keeping things as they are. By that I mean Forest are defending deep and have one-third of possession.

Arsenal, meanwhile, are making regular forays, particularly down the right flank, with an urgency suggesting they’d very much like a goal before the break. Except that even against Forest, this season’s Gunners look just as predictable as they have all season, and Gyokeres is, well ...

Arsenal 0-0 Nottingham Forest after 27 minutes

Nottingham Forest’s Elliot Anderson holds Arsenal’s Mikel Merino.Credit: AP

Eze takes an audacious shot from some distance, just before Odegaard takes his leave.

It doesn’t look good for the Arsenal captain and appears to be his shoulder from that tackle. He’d been in excellent form for his country alongside Erling Haaland in Norway’s 11-1 rout of Moldova. He’s lasted less than 20 minutes here, replaced by Nwaneri. Gabriel takes the armband.

Arsenal 0-0 Nottingham Forest after 20 minutes

Martin Odegaard left the field injured.Credit: AP

Selz makes a pretty good save after an Odegaard free kick ricochets and lands for Merino, who takes a close-range stab and forces some reflex action from the goalkeeper.

Now Odegaard is down with a shoulder issue. Looked to be during a challenge from Gibbs-White.

Arsenal win a corner - the first of the game - and Madueke’s delivery is headed wide by Gabriel.

Forest kick off, notably in white given the home team is in red.

To note, there seems little pressure for Forest to win this, given the rushed nature of the appointment - and the fact Arsenal have won their last six home games against Forest by an aggregate score of 19-2 and are unbeaten in their last 14 matches at home against them.

If you haven’t been on the Ange gravy train, you might not know all the dirty details about what’s been going on at Nottingham Forest.

Nuno, the much-loved Portuguese manager who propelled Forest from 17th place to seventh in the league and qualified them for European football for the first time in some 30 years, had a falling out with Forest’s owner (the colourful Greek character Evangelos Marinakis) and also Edu (Arsenal’s former sporting director recently appointed as Forest’s Global Head of Football).

Cast your mind back to May, when Marinakis stormed the pitch after a game to remonstrate with Nuno, in a scene unheard of in England. And then Nuno in late August foreshadowed his own sacking, saying “there is no smoke without fire” during a revealing press conference.

Nottingham Forest have sacked manager Nuno Espirito Santo.Credit: Getty Images

Then, well, he was sacked, unceremoniously relieved of his duties on Tuesday. By Wednesday, Postecoglou was named as his replacement, and the thinking is his relationship with fellow Greek Marinakis is blossoming and the latter may have earmarked Ange for the role as early as July.

There’s much, much more to say, but kick-off is upon us so will shift to the game.

Mikel Arteta, Arsenal’s manager who will remember Ange well from all the times he defeated his Spurs in the North London derbies of the past two seasons, greets the Australian like an old friend. He tells him something that makes him smile. He is glad to have Ange back, too. He even said it this week.

He tells Stan Sport he’s had a rough start to the season because he’s been “sitting on the couch” and is happy to once again be up on his feet.

He is asked how challenging it has been coming in one day after Nuno was sacked on Tuesday and having only one full training session with his players before this game, and replies: “Impossible.”

And what type of football can we expect to see from Forest tonight? “I think what you have seen in the past will still be there.”