Nottingham Forest glides away. For so long, Champions League football watched firmly within the grip of the two-time European Cup winner. Nuno Espirito Santo worked wonders. History rolled in from the Trent.
One victory in six has seen Nuno's side stop from the top five with three more games to go. With the finish line in sight, they started to falter.
So what went wrong – and can they turn it around?
Wooden
It helps if your striker just can't miss. Chris Wood has led the challenge of the forest with 19 goals this season, behind only Mohammed Salah, Alexander Isak and Erling Haaland in the Premier League scor cards prior to the weekend.
The first 18 of them, from the beginning of the campaign to the mid -February, came from only 46 shots. Almost 40 percent of his goal attempts entered. Wood is an excellent striker, but that is a ridiculous conversion rate, comfortable the highest of each player with five goals at the time. In that phase, Salah and Haaland 22 and 19 had goals, but of more than 90 shots each.
From the chances that Wood had, his expected goals (XG) figures suggested that he 'should' have had to score about 10 goals. Not 18. There is relentless and then there is untenable. Even when Haaland yielded 36 goals in his Maiden Premier League campaign, he only converted 29 percent of his chances.
And it has turned out to be untenable for wood. He only scored once since his last 12 shots, a conversion rate of only 8 percent. If Wood is good for more than a third of the goals of the Forest, his sudden misfiring is a problem.
Creativity problems
It is not just wood that deteriorates. He is a player who trusts service and that is also going to be missing for Bos. They don't get him in the ball in dangerous positions.
Wood has only had two big chances, who are defined as an opportunity that is so good of a player, it should be expected to score in his last nine league games, who had previously had 21 in his previous 24 games. Only one of his last 12 shots was in the six-year box.
Forest has only created one big chance in their last five league games, the lowest in the division. Only relegated Ipswich and Southampton have a lower XG in that period, while Forest's top five Rivals Newcastle, Villa, Chelse and Man City Four of the top six forms. This is not the time to dry up.
But what happened? Well, Forest has never had the most fertile attack in the division. Even when they were in third place in the early April four points, before their bad run, they were still above only the promoted teams and wolves and Everton for their XG count.
There is also a feeling that teams are starting to eliminate the forest. They know that Nuno Espirito Santo likes to come across deeply and in a devastating way. Sents are now doing their best to stop them.
In their last two games, Brentford and Palace Bos allowed more than 50 percent owned. That had not happened in a game since December. Forest, kings of the counterattack, did not collect any 'fast break' in three of their last four games, did not score and even admitted one when Abdoulaye Doucoure took a late winner for Everton.
Teams force Bos to find a different way to win and at the moment they are struggling for the answers.
Defensive dip
So long, what the foundation of the European push of Forest has forged, was their impenetrable defense. From the beginning of the season until February, Forest had admitted the third lowest XG in the Division behind Arsenal and Liverpool. Their 10 clean sheets were the joints in the competition. Opponents could not find a way.
That is also deposited from a cliff.
Since then, only the relegated side has admitted more XG and confronted more shots than forest.
The players of Nuno make more mistakes. Before February they only made 11 mistakes that led to a shot at their goal in 25 games. Since then it has brought them only 10 games to make the same number.
Sieve on a small team
When Leicester won the Premier League almost 10 years ago, they suffered the least injuries, despite the use of the least players. Until recently, Forest produced comparable miracles.
Forest has had the least injuries for most of the season. All this, despite the fact that more players start at least 25 league matches than Forest's 10. Liverpool and Newcastle had the same, but when you start that number to 30, their numbers will fall to four players, while Forest still has seven.
Like many of the season of Forest, that has begun to take his toll. Wood injuries as well as Key Ball Carriers Callum Hudson-Odoi and defender Ola Aina have hurt them, especially for one side that is so strongly dependent on the ball in pace.
Forest does not have the power in the depth of their rivals and that is shown.
It's not over yet
It is unfair to accuse the forest of bottling their chance. This is a team, with a small core of players, that is played at full capacity for most of the season and then. After a while, the weight of minutes and the burden of hope and expectation of tired human spirits and bodies will come into effect. Eventually you take back to the average.
It is still in the hands of the forest. Win their remaining competitions, including a potential showdown of the last day with Chelsea, and the side of Nuno will be in the Champions League of next season.
Leicester's visit comes at the perfect moment, a side that has already been banned and against whose former club Wood has scored seven goals in his 12 Premier League meetings.
West Ham does not follow it.
Wood is back. Aina is back. Can Bos shoot again if it matters the most?
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