Nottingham Forest begin life under Sean Dyche with a difficult league phase test against Porto in 2025-26 UEFA Europa League.
Victory would see Forest climb into the knockout play-off spots, whilst Porto can go top with a win depending on results elsewhere.
Team News
Forest have no fresh injury concerns to report following their 3-0 Premier League defeat against Chelsea, which ultimately saw Ange Postecoglou sacked just minutes after the full-time whistle.
Ola Aina (hamstring) remains ruled out.
Taiwo Awoniyi, Jair Cunha, Angus Gunn and Omari Hutchinson are ineligible after they were left out of Forest’s squad for this competition.
Porto have no fresh injury concerns to report after their 4-0 victory away to Celoricense in Taca de Portugal.
Luuk De Jong, Nehuen Perez (both knee), Yann Karamoh and Tomas Perez (ineligibility) are ruled out.
When is Kick-Off?
Forest host Porto at the City Ground on Thursday 23 October at 8pm BST, live on TNT Sports 1 in the UK.
Stat Attack
- This is Nottingham Forest’s first-ever competitive meeting against Porto.
- Porto are making their first competitive visit to Forest’s City Ground.
- Forest have scored twice in each of their two league phase matches so far this season (D1, L1), during which they conceded five goals across both games.
- William Gomes has scored in each of Porto’s two league phase games so far this season (W2).
Prediction
With just two days of training under Dyche, Forest’ first task is to rediscover their tight defensive spark of last season which is something that could come over time given Dyche’s strong defensive style.
On the immediate hand though, they need to be more clinical than they were in the first half of their loss to Chelsea because if they had taken their chances, they could of killed the game off before half time and Postecoglou would of kept his job for a bit longer.
Porto meanwhile have conceded just twice all season and drew blank once as they remain unbeaten in all competitions, so I expect them to be right up for this clash given their superior confidence and resilient defence, which presents a nightmare task for Forest to beat.
Home advantage and their managerial bounce therefore will be key for Forest but they ideally need to score first, but I just can’t see Porto losing this.
Prediction: Nottingham Forest 1-2 Porto
Result: Nottingham Forest 2-0 Porto