Newcastle 1- Nottingham forest 3
Going into the clash between the two Newcastle sat in 7th in the Premier League while the away side sat in 17th 2 points clear of the relegation zone. This was a big game for both sides, A win for Newcastle would have helped a push back into competing for top 4 while a win for Forest would allow them to move away form the relegation zone.
In the first half Newcastle seemed like the better team going 1-0 up after Isak scored a penalty in the 23th minute. There was a lot of doubt with the penalty as it seemed Isak took a dive or there was very little contact between him and Ola Ania.
Right before the break, Forest had a counter attack where a square ball from Elanga found Chris Wood to draw level. In the 53rd minute of the game Chris wood scored his second of the game dinking the ball over the Newcastle goalkeeper. This goal was almost the same as Leo Messi’s goal vs Bayern Munich in the UCL in 2015. Chris Wood’s final goal came in the 60th minute, rounding the keeper and putting the ball in the back of the net.
Chris Wood and Elanga’s link up under Nuno
Since Nuno EspÃrito Santo came in, Anthony Elanga and Chris Wood have been on fire. Chris Wood has got 4 goals and 1 assist in 2 games while Anthony Elanga has 1 goal and 2 assists in that time with both of Elanga’s assists have been for Chris Wood.
Since Nuno has come in you can see the difference in the way that Nottingham Forest play. Under Steve Cooper, Forest would have gone to Newcastle scared and timid. However, this wasn’t the case with Nuno having 5 attacking players in the starting 11. This worked perfectly making sure that they had goal scoring chances. This meant having 15 shots and 6 of them were on target.
Joe Worrall back in the match day squad!
Having your club captain being back into the match day squad might not seem like a big deal. However, in forest’s case it is a massive deal due to the rumours around Joe Worrall.
These rumours were that he had a falling out with old boss Steve Cooper and had been leaking team news and inside information for years. While we do not know if this was true or not, him being out of the match day squad for a while painted the picture that they were.
However, with the new boss coming in it could open a new door for Joe Worrall as Nuno said himself that it was a new beginning for everyone at the club. Joe Worrall is Nottingham born and has been a fan of the club his whole life. In the 10 minutes he played in the game he was amazing and potentially stopped a Newcastle goal with a key header.
Is Nuno the right man for the job?
At the moment it seems like he is. A brave and great win over Newcastle and an unlucky loss vs Bournemouth where there were a lot of poor refereeing decisions in the game which caused Forest to feel like they were Robbed.
This shouldn’t take away from all the great work Steve Cooper has done for the football club and even Nuno doesn’t want that saying that he wants to build on Steve Cooper’s legacy at the club. Right now it does seem like Nuno Espirito Santo is the right man to take over Nottingham Forest and progress them as a football club.