Arsenal’s faint title hopes dimmed even further after they were held to a 0-0 draw by Nottingham Forest despite dominating Wednesday’s Premier League match at the City Ground between the second and third-placed teams in the table.
Arsenal were 11 points behind runaway leaders Liverpool, albeit with a game in hand, but failure to win extended the gap to 13 points after Liverpool later beat Newcastle United 2-0.
Forest remained six points behind Arsenal in third place, keeping up their hopes of Champions League football next season, as they advanced to 48 points.
They did well to absorb Arsenal’s pressure in the first half, restricting them to no shots on target, although the Gunners were inches away from opening the scoring in the 24th minute after left back Riccardo Calafiori struck the post with a shot.
Calafiori had been booked in the second minute and came close to giving away a penalty, when he appeared to impede Callum Hudson-Odoi’s progress into the Arsenal box.
It was no surprise that he did not come back out after the break as Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta preferred not to risk going down to 10 men if Calafiori was booked again.
A dip of the shoulder from Ethan Nwaneri near the end of the first half set up a chance at the near post but it was blocked before the Arsenal attacker could get his effort away.
Makeshift forward Mikel Merino’s 53rd-minute header from Declan Rice’s corner was the visitors’ first effort on target but it was parried by Forest keeper Matz Sels.
Arsenal were full of innovation with their set-piece routines, Calafiori’s replacement Kieran Tierney heading narrowly wide from another corner.
Forest took 64 minutes to win their first corner and five minutes later their top scorer Chris Wood forced a routine save out of David Raya in the Arsenal goal.
It was a second successive match without a goal for Arsenal after they lost at home to West Ham United and Forest have won only one of their last five league games.
“We dominated the game. We tried in many different ways. We insisted but lacked that spark, that final pass to unlock a well organised team. We have to generate more shots on target,” Arteta said.
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