Nottingham Forest Look to End Losing Streak at Anfield

Nottingham Forest head to Anfield on Saturday still hunting their first points of the new Premier League season – and they could hardly have picked a more unforgiving place to look for them.

Oliver Glasner’s side opened with defeat to Leeds United, then slipped out of the Carabao Cup days later. Two games, two losses, no momentum. Yet there is one shard of encouragement: Forest have won on each of their last two visits to Anfield. For a club trying to steady itself under a new head coach, that matters. Players remember those nights. So do home fans.

Forest’s fitness picture

Glasner’s options are still trimmed by injury. Nicolo Savona and Ryan Yates remain unavailable and will not feature on Saturday. Both would have offered energy in midfield; both are missing at a time when Forest need as many reliable campaigners as possible.

There was at least one positive in midweek. Summer recruits Ousmane Diomande and Xaver Schlager both made their full debuts in the Carabao Cup tie and did enough to stay firmly in the conversation for Anfield. They are not just squad padding; they are pushing to keep their shirts.

Glasner has reported no fresh fitness issues from that cup defeat, a small mercy in a period of heavy change. He has been blunt about the scale of the rebuild at the City Ground, repeatedly setting his evolving group against the benchmark of more established Premier League squads that have grown together over several seasons. Forest are not there yet. The process is raw, visible, sometimes painful.

Shape, structure, and the Anfield plan

The blueprint for Anfield is taking shape. Murillo, Nikola Milenković and Diomande are expected to form a robust back three, the spine of a side that knows it will have to withstand long spells without the ball. In front of them, a hard-running midfield four of Ola Aina, Ibrahim Sangaré, Schlager and Neco Williams should provide both cover and width, snapping into duels and trying to break Liverpool’s rhythm.

Further forward, the responsibility tilts towards Morgan Gibbs-White. He has either scored or assisted in half of Forest’s last six games at Anfield, a record that underlines his importance in these surroundings. He is set to operate just off Igor Jesus, with Dan Ndoye offering legs and aggression alongside him. If Forest are to hurt Liverpool, Gibbs-White will almost certainly be at the heart of it.

The likely XI has a clear, pragmatic feel:

Sels; Murillo, Milenković, Diomande; Aina, Sangaré, Schlager, Williams; Gibbs-White, Ndoye; Igor Jesus.

It is a side built to suffer, then strike.

Stage, time, and stakes

Anfield, early kick-off, cameras rolling. The match gets underway at 12:30 on Saturday, 29 August 2026, live in the UK on TNT Sports 1 and TNT Sports Ultimate.

Forest arrive wounded but not without hope, clinging to recent history on Merseyside and to a new manager’s conviction that his rebuild will take root. The question now is simple: can a team still finding itself walk back into Anfield and make it three wins in a row?