Matchday 30 - Nottingham Forest Football Club vs Crystal Palace Football Club. Saturday, 30th of March KO 3pm

[football post]

Highlight today?
New parking spot so we got home for half 6, it's usually 7.
That first half was dreadful.

 

[Collymore!]

Funny that some supporters are asking whether Wood should get a contract extension… I’m afraid that probably isn’t our decision to make now.

He’s a free agent who’s just scored 10 goals in the Premier League. He will have plenty of interest in the summer and definitely will be thinking about a move. 100% will leave us if we go down too.

Fair play to him.

 

[Grenville 1898]

Things were going fine with Elanga on the right, Hudson Odoi on the left with Dominguez and Yates in midfield. Why has Nuno messed with it? Strange substitution at HT as well. Much prefer MGW further forwards where he can do more damage. Unlike others, I don't think we were any better second half. Bit of a rabble really. We've had a lot of games where we've deserved more than we've got but lucky to get a point today.

Nuno needs to stop tinkering with the starting line-up. I can't see what he was trying to achieve today.

Starting with Yates, Sangaré, Origi and Felipe was a mistake imo. The team looks far more balanced with Omo, Domínguez, Danilo and Elanga.

 

[beast85]

Running out of winnable games

 

[stockers]

Looked at the starting lineup and was surprised with Felipe and Sangare.. Seems like i may have been right.. Just stick with Omo at the back and Domínguez.. Makes me a little nevery about the manager, Coops had the same thing with Sangare, dropped everything to get he in the team straight away, whats with this guy!

 

[Robertson]

Running out of winnable games

Yeah down to eight now.

 

[Des's dirty Y-fronts]

Everyone seemed to raise their game a bit for a little spell when Rayna came on the pitch, leading to the goal. Need to find a way of starting him and MGW

 

[BryanRoy22]

Then theres the Origi for Elanga pick that keeps coming with little justification, I get Origi is considered the bigger goal threat, but that just isnt panning out.

Funnily (or unfunnily) enough, Elanga's goal return this season as a winger is roughly the same on average as Origi when he's played as a striker throughout all the seasons in his career.

 

[Captain Sinister]

My one man destrucion of our most expensive signing appears in today's Match Report!

Saturday 30th March 2024: Nottingham Forest v Crystal Palace (Premier League; Kick Off 15:00):

I would like to start this report by stating my solidarity with Steven Reid: Paul Tierney is a f***ing ****! Can I than say that I am still feeling very sad about the loss of a Forest Miracle Man this week, and give my heart-felt condolences to the family of Larry Lloyd.

To the game: I posted in the matchday thread that I considered this the first “Must Win” game of the season. Failure to win it hasn’t spelled the Doom of Forest as other results were in our favour, but it is a said state of affairs to report that the best news of the day was that Forest have climbed out of the bottom 3. The trouble is, of our last 9 games of the season, todays was probably the best opportunity for Forest to secure a win. We welcome Fulham on Tuesday, which now becomes a “Must Win” game, while Luton (realistically, the only real other contender for the final relegation slot) travel to the Emirates stadium to play Arsenal.

In a nutshell, today’s game failed to live up to the “Rebel City: Nottingham until we die” video posted by the Club, with Nuno and the squad all telling us they were giving their all, and we fans were needed to give them our all. It was a poor game with both sides gifting possession to the other on far too many occasions. However, such a poor game was blessed with 2 equally well taken goals before ending in what I will grudgingly describe as a fair draw after the 90 minutes.

Forest started the game like a team on Prozac: listless, lackadaisical, and sluggish. It came as no surprise that Palace took the lead on 10 minutes, when an otherwise decent Neco Williams won the ball on the edge of the Forest box and played an under hit, ill-conceived pass up to Chris Wood. Wood was not able to get to the ball and the Palace defender marking him got there first to put a lovely pass through to the ever-dangerous Eze. Eze took the ball into the Forest box, looked to have a shooting chance, but he squared the ball to the unmarked Mateta who fired home from 14-yards, giving Sels no chance.

Forest did come to life a bit, but found their efforts thwarted by serious time-wasting by Palace, and by continuing to misplace pass after pass. Palace were denied a 2nd goal on 3 occasions by the impressive Sels, while Forest, pressing hard failed to put a single shot worthy of the name for Henderson to deal with.

Felipe escaped with a telling off, having hacked Mateta down on the halfway line, but was yellow-carded late in the half for wrestling his man to the ground. It was not Felipes best game, truth be told. And so the half ended with a chorus of boos for the ineffective referee who should have booked Henderson for his persistent time wasting, and despite all the time-wasting a mere 2-minutes was added on.

I now have to own up to being rather critical of our £35m central midfielder, Ibrahim Sangare. UI watched him closely during the warm up before kick-off, and was appalled by his lack of interest or effort during the loosening sprints, and the tippy-tappy one touch game. He carried this lassiez-faire attitude into the first half, failing to break sweat at any time, making stupid passes and loosing out in 50/50 challenges. Yes, he made the occasional pass but he is so out of touch with the pace of the game I was yelling for him to be taken off well before the half-time whistle.

Obviously, NES had been listening, because Sangare didn’t reappear after the half-time tea and orange: Anthony Elanga coming on to try an inject some pace and urgency into Forest. Seeing Luton 1-0 up at half time, away at Spurs, was a serious worry. We lose and they win, and the mountain to escape relegation would have been terrifying.

The2nd half was rather different to the first, with Palace putting 9 men behind the ball, relying on breakaways to try and nick a 2nd goal. Thankfully, Forest were able to play at a higher tempo, and cope with the threats posed, but once again they had Sels to thank for keeping the ball out of the net. Forest attacked at pace down both flanks, but a combination of poor final passes, and a lack of men in the box meant attacks came to nothing. Hudson-Odoi was in good form, and eventually a mazey run to the by-line and knock back to MGW enabled the Forest No.10 to chip in a delightful cross that Wood was able, with immense skill, to nod over the flailing Henderson to equalise.

Forest continued to press after that equaliser, but the slowness of the attacking in the final third meant that Palace, with their massed defence were able to snuff out most threats. Wood got on the end of a MGW corner, but his glancing downward header was weak, and easily collected by Henderson. Reyne had a snap shot for the angle brilliantly palmed away by the former Forest favourite, and the game drifted to an inevitable close and Forest had to be content with a single point.

Sangare should not figure in a starting XI again for Forest, until he is prepared to actually put in some effort. At the moment he looks like the single worst acquisition made by any Premier League club in living memory.

Player Ratings:

Sels: 7 – calm, brave and competent, keeping Forest in the game with a string of vital saves;

Williams: 7 – made a poor pass that resulted in the Palace opener, but other than that was confident in defence and aggressive in attack;

Felipe: 3 – fortunate not to receive 2 yellow cards for blatant professional fouls; partially recovered his reputation with a massive tackle on Mateta in the 2nd half, but overall, this was not his finest performance for Forest;

Murillo: 7 – had to cover for Felipe on many occasions;

Aina: 7 – a welcome return for Ola. Sad that it was Toffo that had to make way, but Aina’s attacking threat was a bonus to Forest, particularly after the break;

Sangare: 0 – contributed absolutely nothing, and whatever is going on with him he neither displays the technical ability nor the mental strength to merit a place even on the bench. PSV have robbed our owner of £35m;

Yates: 6 – as always, a committed performance, but he is a wee bit slow of thought at times, which slows our attack;

Hudson-Odoi: 8 – my Forest MOTM today with a battling, hard running, tricky performance;

Gibbs-White: 6 – didn’t really impose himself on the game today, despite occasional nice touches, and a spot-on chipped cross for Wood to score;

Origi: 5 – for a player costing a reported £85k per week in wages, Origi fails to show any confidence in his ability to score goals;

Wood: 7 – 10 Prem goals for a 5th season is a great achievement. With Awoniyi likely to be a sick-note for the next 4-weeks, we need chris Wood to continue to score crucial goals for us.

Substitutions:

Elanga (on for Sangare): 6 – added some pace, but not quite delivering at the moment;

Reyna (on for Origi): 4 – nowhere near ready for the Premier League;

Toffolo (on for Aina): 6 – splendid forceful runs and good link up with CHO.

Conclusion: Today we were fortunate to rescue a point from a game where we really ought to have had enough to take all 3. We have invested in Sangare, and unless he changes attitude and applies himself he will be memorable in Forest’s History books as the most expensive flop in our history.

And for the Foodies out there, we forewent the pre-match fish and chips, and elected for a lavish post-match curry from our favourite restaurant, Haveli.

 

[Malwood]

Sangare was a complete and utter waste of money, doesn’t look like he wants to be here and we should get rid asap, but we’ll take a hit on his fee.

I'm guessing this will be a controversial opinion, but I thought Sangare was fine today. A few times he tried a trick and lost control, but every time the ball bobbled back to him and he regained possession because he's a big awkward disruptive kind of player. He was in the right place to break up loads of attacks and got an important foot in every time. If we go down I think there'll be a load of clubs trying to buy him. They'll all think we're idiots for not being able to get the best out of him.

 

[Malwood]

Very frustrating match today. Nobody played that badly, we had plenty of the ball, some lovely one-touch stuff, but precious goal threat. So many of our slick passing moves ended up with us having to play the ball backwards. Palace were actually a really well-organised defensive unit, it was pretty impressive from them.

Crowd was really apprehensive today as well I thought. Too quiet, too nervous. Wasn't a great atmosphere.

 

[Bonfy177]

My one man destrucion of our most expensive signing appears in today's Match Report!

Saturday 30th March 2024: Nottingham Forest v Crystal Palace (Premier League; Kick Off 15:00):

I would like to start this report by stating my solidarity with Steven Reid: Paul Tierney is a f***ing ****! Can I than say that I am still feeling very sad about the loss of a Forest Miracle Man this week, and give my heart-felt condolences to the family of Larry Lloyd.

To the game: I posted in the matchday thread that I considered this the first “Must Win” game of the season. Failure to win it hasn’t spelled the Doom of Forest as other results were in our favour, but it is a said state of affairs to report that the best news of the day was that Forest have climbed out of the bottom 3. The trouble is, of our last 9 games of the season, todays was probably the best opportunity for Forest to secure a win. We welcome Fulham on Tuesday, which now becomes a “Must Win” game, while Luton (realistically, the only real other contender for the final relegation slot) travel to the Emirates stadium to play Arsenal.

In a nutshell, today’s game failed to live up to the “Rebel City: Nottingham until we die” video posted by the Club, with Nuno and the squad all telling us they were giving their all, and we fans were needed to give them our all. It was a poor game with both sides gifting possession to the other on far too many occasions. However, such a poor game was blessed with 2 equally well taken goals before ending in what I will grudgingly describe as a fair draw after the 90 minutes.

Forest started the game like a team on Prozac: listless, lackadaisical, and sluggish. It came as no surprise that Palace took the lead on 10 minutes, when an otherwise decent Neco Williams won the ball on the edge of the Forest box and played an under hit, ill-conceived pass up to Chris Wood. Wood was not able to get to the ball and the Palace defender marking him got there first to put a lovely pass through to the ever-dangerous Eze. Eze took the ball into the Forest box, looked to have a shooting chance, but he squared the ball to the unmarked Mateta who fired home from 14-yards, giving Sels no chance.

Forest did come to life a bit, but found their efforts thwarted by serious time-wasting by Palace, and by continuing to misplace pass after pass. Palace were denied a 2nd goal on 3 occasions by the impressive Sels, while Forest, pressing hard failed to put a single shot worthy of the name for Henderson to deal with.

Felipe escaped with a telling off, having hacked Mateta down on the halfway line, but was yellow-carded late in the half for wrestling his man to the ground. It was not Felipes best game, truth be told. And so the half ended with a chorus of boos for the ineffective referee who should have booked Henderson for his persistent time wasting, and despite all the time-wasting a mere 2-minutes was added on.

I now have to own up to being rather critical of our £35m central midfielder, Ibrahim Sangare. UI watched him closely during the warm up before kick-off, and was appalled by his lack of interest or effort during the loosening sprints, and the tippy-tappy one touch game. He carried this lassiez-faire attitude into the first half, failing to break sweat at any time, making stupid passes and loosing out in 50/50 challenges. Yes, he made the occasional pass but he is so out of touch with the pace of the game I was yelling for him to be taken off well before the half-time whistle.

Obviously, NES had been listening, because Sangare didn’t reappear after the half-time tea and orange: Anthony Elanga coming on to try an inject some pace and urgency into Forest. Seeing Luton 1-0 up at half time, away at Spurs, was a serious worry. We lose and they win, and the mountain to escape relegation would have been terrifying.

The2nd half was rather different to the first, with Palace putting 9 men behind the ball, relying on breakaways to try and nick a 2nd goal. Thankfully, Forest were able to play at a higher tempo, and cope with the threats posed, but once again they had Sels to thank for keeping the ball out of the net. Forest attacked at pace down both flanks, but a combination of poor final passes, and a lack of men in the box meant attacks came to nothing. Hudson-Odoi was in good form, and eventually a mazey run to the by-line and knock back to MGW enabled the Forest No.10 to chip in a delightful cross that Wood was able, with immense skill, to nod over the flailing Henderson to equalise.

Forest continued to press after that equaliser, but the slowness of the attacking in the final third meant that Palace, with their massed defence were able to snuff out most threats. Wood got on the end of a MGW corner, but his glancing downward header was weak, and easily collected by Henderson. Reyne had a snap shot for the angle brilliantly palmed away by the former Forest favourite, and the game drifted to an inevitable close and Forest had to be content with a single point.

Sangare should not figure in a starting XI again for Forest, until he is prepared to actually put in some effort. At the moment he looks like the single worst acquisition made by any Premier League club in living memory.

Player Ratings:

Sels: 7 – calm, brave and competent, keeping Forest in the game with a string of vital saves;

Williams: 7 – made a poor pass that resulted in the Palace opener, but other than that was confident in defence and aggressive in attack;

Felipe: 3 – fortunate not to receive 2 yellow cards for blatant professional fouls; partially recovered his reputation with a massive tackle on Mateta in the 2nd half, but overall, this was not his finest performance for Forest;

Murillo: 7 – had to cover for Felipe on many occasions;

Aina: 7 – a welcome return for Ola. Sad that it was Toffo that had to make way, but Aina’s attacking threat was a bonus to Forest, particularly after the break;

Sangare: 0 – contributed absolutely nothing, and whatever is going on with him he neither displays the technical ability nor the mental strength to merit a place even on the bench. PSV have robbed our owner of £35m;

Yates: 6 – as always, a committed performance, but he is a wee bit slow of thought at times, which slows our attack;

Hudson-Odoi: 8 – my Forest MOTM today with a battling, hard running, tricky performance;

Gibbs-White: 6 – didn’t really impose himself on the game today, despite occasional nice touches, and a spot-on chipped cross for Wood to score;

Origi: 5 – for a player costing a reported £85k per week in wages, Origi fails to show any confidence in his ability to score goals;

Wood: 7 – 10 Prem goals for a 5th season is a great achievement. With Awoniyi likely to be a sick-note for the next 4-weeks, we need chris Wood to continue to score crucial goals for us.

Substitutions:

Elanga (on for Sangare): 6 – added some pace, but not quite delivering at the moment;

Reyna (on for Origi): 4 – nowhere near ready for the Premier League;

Toffolo (on for Aina): 6 – splendid forceful runs and good link up with CHO.

Conclusion: Today we were fortunate to rescue a point from a game where we really ought to have had enough to take all 3. We have invested in Sangare, and unless he changes attitude and applies himself he will be memorable in Forest’s History books as the most expensive flop in our history.

And for the Foodies out there, we forewent the pre-match fish and chips, and elected for a lavish post-match curry from our favourite restaurant, Haveli.

Good log Captain hope ya curry cheers you up as I can tell ya not that chipper after todays game .

The offer of me drawing you a picture for ya dining room is still on the table .

 

[Colbackstreet Boys]

We (Nuno) are selecting our way back to the Championship.

His team selections reek of either not knowing his best 11 (still), hubris, favouritism, wanting to be sacked, or combination of the four. His obsession with bringing Origi into the side and benching Elanga or CHO has beaten out any fluidity or relationship between the front four and seems to be picking the middle two from a f***ing tombola every week. Its nigh-impossible anymore to identify any discernible game plan or strategy from the team he sends out week on week. It's just a random, incomprehensible mess.

Origi shouldn't be anywhere near the 11. Nor should Sangare. And frankly not should Felipe on current form. Conversely, Elanga or CHO shouldn't be anywhere near the bench if fit.

I'm sick of this season. Sick of this squad. Sick of Marinakis insistence that we remain a circus. Sick of knowing far too much about football accounting than I should do. Becoming increasingly sick of the manager. Sense he is sick of us, too.

After today I think there's a very real chance we don't win another game this season. No cohesion, at least half the squad clearly already thinking and talking to agents about their options for next season, and seemingly no system or formula that will get this group of players winning games.

And most worst of all, our secret weapon - The City Ground - is now a soft touch.

Tuesday huge.

 

[Wes' Organ]

I'm guessing this will be a controversial opinion, but I thought Sangare was fine today. A few times he tried a trick and lost control, but every time the ball bobbled back to him and he regained possession because he's a big awkward disruptive kind of player. He was in the right place to break up loads of attacks and got an important foot in every time. If we go down I think there'll be a load of clubs trying to buy him. They'll all think we're idiots for not being able to get the best out of him.

How much do you think all these clubs will be prepared to pay for him?

 

[MaxiRobriguez]

I think the two halves showed what we can expect come the end of the season.

Play like we did in the first half, relegation.
Play like we did in the second half, survival.

Sorry I just don't buy this.

We weren't any better in the second half despite having more of the ball. Goal out of nothing and then we offered zero threat until final whistle. Could have played for another hour and we wouldn't have troubled them.

Performance for almost all of the 90 was dogshit.

 

[T Francis]

Here's hoping your wife gets seen ASAP and you can make the game

Wish I’d have stayed at hospital now

 

[Battered Sausage]

I think the two halves showed what we can expect come the end of the season.

Play like we did in the first half, relegation.
Play like we did in the second half, survival.

We do like to come from behind don’t we.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Wes' Organ]

We do like to come from behind don’t we.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Phnar phnar

 

[FBS]

The first few games under Nuno we were playing fast, fluid football. We now look languid and, at times, scared to go forward.

We are one of the teams with the fastest breakaway in the PL. But we don't seem interested in doing that anymore. Even though it worked.

Baffled today by the team selection. Annoyed at the first half. Second half we stepped it up a bit. But still not as clinical.

Sent from my SM-S911B using Tapatalk

 

[Simmo's Bus]

Just got back to sunny Northampton.
That first half was awful.
I never want to see Sangare in a Forest shirt again. Utter waste of money.
Yates brings nothing to a side that needs to transition quickly.
Not sure how Felipe earned being picked after his performance at Luton, if fact some of Nuno’s selections continue to baffle me.
Goalkeeper problem is sorted.
We still can’t string three passes together.
CHO was excellent.
Two of the three ’Winnable’ games have brought us two points.
I’ll be amazed if we avoid relegation as I don’t really see enough fight in this team (despite the videos and collages).

Glad I’ve got all that off my chest and that I don’t have to endure the next two home games as I’m buggering off on holiday!

 

[DizzyBala]

I'll try and be measured in my thoughts and keep it brief.

First Half
Considering the circumstances the club found itself in, with a return to the relegation zone, courtesy of the findings of the independent panel and the two week break between the Luton game and this, I had hoped for something of a positive reaction. Fans found themselves with a renewed voice early on, as Forza did their display (lovely job boys) and we gave a club legend a good send-off.

The 47 minutes that proceeded were the antithesis of what reaction I had hoped for. We were easily carved open by Palace for their goal which took all the air of the stadium. They started time wasting, which while f***ing annoying, you could appreciate if the roles were reversed. They had very limited options going forward too, so if they could frustrate us and turn the crowd against the players, it worked in their favour. We seemed disjointed but also frightened of shooting for goal.

It's alright blaming the ref for letting them time waste but when we did have the ball, we did nothing with it. No controversy about that.
Players were boo'ed off and honestly, rightfully so, because it was properly shit.

It's alright Morgan expecting the Trent End to get behind the team but respectfully, he carried it like he didn't want to be here that half. His set-pieces were suspect again.

Second Half
I felt when I saw Elanga come out and get stripped off, a bit of optimism because Palace are really not a good side, they're just marginally better than us. I was somewhat surprised when Sangare went off for Elanga, given the formation but I'll be honest, I was happy to see the back of Sangare so whatever.

Felt like we created a bit more but, again just lacking that meaningful cutting edge. It's very difficult to win games of football when you create only 1-2 clear cut chances per game. While we were better second half, we were better only because we were so bad first half.

Chris took his goal superbly and we clung on for dear life at 1-1, then never really mounted any sustained pressure to win the game.

Overall
We lost the ability to win with that selection. I though Hudson-Odoi and Williams were excellent, as well as Sels.
We needed to win and didn't. But it wasn't so bad because more or less all the results went for us.

 

[T.B.T.]

Sorry I just don't buy this.

We weren't any better in the second half despite having more of the ball. Goal out of nothing and then we offered zero threat until final whistle. Could have played for another hour and we wouldn't have troubled them.

Performance for almost all of the 90 was dogshit.

I thought we were markedly better in the second half and felt either team could have snatched a winner.

We were poor in the first but we were not dogshit.

 

[Malwood]

How much do you think all these clubs will be prepared to pay for him?

Depends on his wages, since we're probably paying him way more than a Seria A club like Lazio or Napoli would be happy with. There's been a lot of asset appreciation in CDMs as well. If we stay up I think we'd be able to sell him for vaguely what we paid. If we go down, well, buying clubs will know we have no choice....

 

[Simmo's Bus]

We (Nuno) are selecting our way back to the Championship.

His team selections reek of either not knowing his best 11 (still), hubris, favouritism, wanting to be sacked, or combination of the four. His obsession with bringing Origi into the side and benching Elanga or CHO has beaten out any fluidity or relationship between the front four and seems to be picking the middle two from a f***ing tombola every week. Its nigh-impossible anymore to identify any discernible game plan or strategy from the team he sends out week on week. It's just a random, incomprehensible mess.

Origi shouldn't be anywhere near the 11. Nor should Sangare. And frankly not should Felipe on current form. Conversely, Elanga or CHO shouldn't be anywhere near the bench if fit.

I'm sick of this season. Sick of this squad. Sick of Marinakis insistence that we remain a circus. Sick of knowing far too much about football accounting than I should do. Becoming increasingly sick of the manager. Sense he is sick of us, too.

After today I think there's a very real chance we don't win another game this season. No cohesion, at least half the squad clearly already thinking and talking to agents about their options for next season, and seemingly no system or formula that will get this group of players winning games.

And most worst of all, our secret weapon - The City Ground - is now a soft touch.

Tuesday huge.

This in spades

 

[Bonfy177]

I thought it got much much better as the game went on …….the craic on here I’m on about…..even JFK got a mention. .