Nottingham Forest vs. Porto: Sean Dyche's side looking to extend six-year run, prolong 12-year Porto wait in Europa League fixture

Nottingham Forest will be bidding to extend two European streaks when they square off against Porto on Thursday night.

After being appointed as Ange Postecoglou's successor earlier this week, Sean Dyche takes charge of his first game with the Tricky Trees.

Forest are already playing catch-up in the League Phase of the competition having collected just one point from matches against Real Betis and FC Midtjylland before the October international break.

Meanwhile, 10 matches have passed by without Forest recording a win in any tournament, heaping the pressure on Dyche to make a positive start to life at the City Ground.

However, the former Burnley and Everton manager goes into his first fixture in the Forest dugout with the opportunity to extend two streaks.

Nottingham Forest bidding to extend Premier League dominance over Portugal

While Forest have never squared off against Portuguese opposition in their history, it is a familiar match-up for Premier League clubs.

In fact, as many as 10 Europa League head-to-heads have taken place and six years passed by without a Portuguese team coming out on top.

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Braga were the last team from Portugal to overcome a Premier League team in this competition when they prevailed 1-0 against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux in September 2019.

That all said, it should be noted that seven of the 10 matches since that fixture have ended in draws.

As for Porto, they make the trip to the East Midlands having recorded successive victories over Red Bull Salzburg and Red Star Belgrade.

Should they heap further misery on Forest on Thursday night, it will represent the first time since 2012-13 where they have prevailed in their opening three European matches in a season.

History is against Porto, however, who have lost 27 of their 49 European games against English opposition, the most of any team in Europe.