THE TRENT ENDZ
Nottingham Forest 1 West Ham 0
Nottingham Forest, like the River Trent, have a wonderful history, but are currently a little lacking in depth. ‘A good time to play them,’ I hear you scream.
The pitch is lush and green, a certain indication that East Midland Water Services are yet to put into operation their threatened hose pipe ban. Forest spend the first five minutes pressing high, and win an early free kick when Rice brings down Awoniyi, but Williams’ inept free kick is high, wide and ugly. Cresswell shows how it should be done at the other end with a curling dipping shot that is just a few inches over, but before the tenth minute Rice is on the referee’s iPad for only his second foul of the game. Fabianski then makes a brilliant top corner save to claw away a misdirected header from his own player, Jarrod Bowen.
Hammers begin to settle and Benrahma’s bending shot is flapped away by Henderson. A cross from Cresswell is headed powerfully goalwards by Souček, but straight at the keeper. Bowen looks a little off the pace this afternoon, not unlike he did last Sunday, but perhaps that’s when he is at his most dangerous. Perhaps. Benrahma is looking a good starter as he flies down the left flank again, his ball in only marginally avoiding meaningful connection with Souček’s right boot.
Antonio is unlucky not to get better contact on a ball running loose from a block on Benrahma’s shot. The game is a tad slower after the drinks break on 25 minutes. Some idling possession from Forest but Hammers still more likely to score, which they do when Benrahma taps in a through ball from Rice, but not before Antonio has run into Mangala, who drops to the ground like a felled giant redwood. Sadly the challenge leads to the ‘goal’ being disallowed. Awoniyi, without realising what he is doing, puts Forest ahead in the third minute of injury time when Johnson’s clearance hits him on the knee and trickles past the already committed Fabianski. I thumb through the pages of my Thesaurus for a stronger description than ‘lucky’. At least Lingard, who made the original pass that hit Johnson, won’t get credit for the assist.
Sky unload their Forest Premier League Greeting Bullschitt in lorryloads, while we’re all still wondering just why Benrahma’s ‘goal’ has been disallowed. Don’t worry, the partisan wonkheads are just weaving their predictable narrative, at odds with virtually everything seen in the first half. They have Daniel Mann on the mike for the live comms, a Forest supporter since his conception.
The second half starts over the strains of a bastardised rendition of ‘Mull of Kintyre,’ a song presumably lazily hijacked for a new club theme. I wonder if McCartney has received a royalty cheque for this. If so, he was almost certainly too embarrassed to cash it. In less than a minute of the second half Fornals hits the underside of the bar with a breathtaking strike, Henderson doing well to stagger back to his feet promptly to beat away Souček’s powerful rebound header.
Forest then score a second with their first attack of the second half, a breakaway goal from Johnson. Truly beyond belief. However, it is thankfully disallowed after a long think through from the chaps at Shockley Park. Justice served cold on a hot afternoon.
Now Benrahma hits the underside of the bar on the hour from a free kick, and Souček’s shot is beaten away by McKenna. They should christen the potato salad man ‘The Rebounder.’ Now the first decent break of the afternoon. VAR shows that McKenna has fielded Souček’s effort away with his arm, so it’s a penalty. No Lanzini, so Rice takes. In line with the passages of play this half, Henderson saves it at the foot of his left hand post. WTF? Now Antonio and Fornals are substituted for Scamacca and Lanzini, two players who share the dubious stat of having over 5% of their body weight measured in tattoo ink. So. The ultimate question Is there to be a goal from the Italian Stallion this afternoon?
Forest have now, in a full half an hour of play, created only the one chance, resulting in the disallowed goal. Hammers continue to dominate. Can they fashion an equaliser? Zouma’s header from a Cresswell corner is scrambled off the line for another corner from which Zouma is floored in his challenge for the ball, but this time no penalty. It’s all really desperate stuff, but despite the developing belief that possession equals goals, the equaliser does not come. This, despite seven minutes of injury time. Clips will have an editing field day with the fetid footage tomorrow…
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 2 Ben Johnson, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 4 Kurt Zouma, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 41 Declan Rice (captain), 28 Tomas Souček, 8 Pablo Fornals, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 22 Saïd Benrahma
Substitutes: 7 Gianluca Scamacca, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 14 Maxwel Cornet
