Nottingham Forest (Home) 21.04.2025

The lack of awareness in defending coast Tottenham two goal and it could have been three if the semi-automated offside hadn’t ruled it out.  surprisingly, there was booing at half-time, but the lack of ire from the Spurs support may have been affected by the same sort of malaise the team are suffering with neither fully committed to the cause.  The number of empty seats and non-regulars in attendance probably backed this up.

The opening couple of minutes looked promising for Tottenham with Mathys Tell looking to get at Williams and having a shot blocked as he burst into the box from a position wide on the left, but when Forest went on the attack, Gibbs-White forced Guglielmo Vicario to a low save at the expense of a corner.  It was played in and glanced out of the box by Pedro Porro at the near post and it fell for Anderson to strike the ball low from a couple of yards outside the area.  Taking a big touch of the inside of Rodrigo Bentancur’s thigh, the ball went into the ground and the bounce beat the Tottenham keeper to put the away side into the lead with four and a half minutes gone.  It was symptomatic of our luck when we are not playing well and was the first of many bounces in the match that went Forest’s way.

The only bit of luck we did get in the match was when a cross from Anderson on the left wing found Wood ghosting in behind our sleeping defence to make contact with an unconvincing volley that took Vicario by surprise and he unconvincingly failed to keep out.  It turned out that after a longer than usual offside VAR under the new regime Wood’s arm and shoulder were beyond the last man.  Not that it helped that much because following Tel having another effort blocked after a corner fell to him, an Elanga cross from the left left Vic grasping at fresh air, as he came for the ball, but was beaten to it by Wood, who headed it in.  It was a series of errors, with nobody closing Elanga down to stop the cross coming in, the defenders failing to pick up Wood and Vicario for not getting to the ball once he had decided to come for it.  16 minutes in and 0-2 down.

With Odobert and Tel willing to run at the Forest full-backs, there was some response, with Odobert’s cross nearly drifting in at the far post and then Wilson drew a good save with a low shot that Sels had to get down to his left quickly to push away for a corner.  Tel planted a header over at the far post, Dejan Kulusevski forced Sels into a sharp stop and then Odobert flashed a fierce cross through the six yard box, but nobody had read it and it went untouched by a Spurs player.  Five minutes before half-time, Williams tried to cut out Porro’s cross and it dropped in front of Mathys, but he failed to set himself and blazed the ball off target when a more composed finish might have tested the goalkeeper.  When Odobert crossed to the far post a minute later, Richarlison headed wide, with Pape Matar Sarr probably better placed coming in behind him.

Cristian Romero picked up a booking for an impetuous tackle on Anderson’s ankle, but the fact that it wasn’t his first bad foul of the match and that he had been having a run-in with the Forest midfielder throughout the first half, it wasn’t surprising that the ref waved the yellow card at him.  There was just enough time for Richarlison to put another header wide before the teams headed for the dressing rooms with boos raining down from the South Stand. 

While Paul Coit tried to talk up the next 45 minutes as an important one for Tottenham and used the appearance of Martin Chivers (a few days away from his 80th birthday) and the U17 League Cup winning Spurs keeper Blake Irow with the trophy as inspiration, it looked an uphill task to claw something back form this match.  But it almost happened as Forest sat back to defend in numbers to try to maintain what they had already got from the match.

Taking off van de Ven and Romero at half-time and replacing them with Davies and Danso was hardly the attacking change that a lot of fans demanded, but the game changed with the momentum all coming from Tottenham.  With both wingers lively again, Spurs were unable to capitalise on their good work and Forest had a good opportunity, but Gibbs-White put his quickly taken effort wide of Vicario’s goal.

Just after the hour, Spurs won a corner on the right wing and Porro played it into the near post area, where Kulusevski won a header glanced towards the far post, where Toffolo hooked it off the line with an acrobatic clearance.  Kevin Danso was trying to make things happen by pushing into the Forest half, but a couple of his passes were too heavy and when he tried a shot from outside the area, it was wide of the mark.  just before that, when the ball pin-balled around the Forest box as they tried to clear the ball, it was thrashed against a team-mate by a red-shirted player and dropped beyond the last man for Richarlison to react first, hooking a bouncing ball at goal, only to see Sels block it with his body.  Of course, the keeper then went down and needed “treatment”.

It was the Forest keeper who was waging a personal battle against Richi, pulling out a stretching save down to his right when Porro’s cross was headed down towards the far bottom corner by our Brazilian striker with ten minutes to go.  Lucas Bergvall came off the bench for Sarr and as usual, he was available to receive the ball and willing to make progressive runs with it.  With four minutes left, Bentancur took a pass inside from Porro on the right wing and running infield, Rodrigo turned and played the ball in front of Pedro, who Hudson-Odoi had let go.  The first time cross into the hear tof the penalty area was met by Richarlison, who had to wrap his head around the ball, which was slightly behind him and direct it down into the area where Sels had saved six minutes before.  But not this time, with the goal handing a late life-line to Tottenham.

Things got a bit frantic as Spurs pushed on for an equaliser, while Forest did everything they could to prevent it, picking up three bookings in the last eight minutes of the game  including one in added time for Sels for time-wasting, which referee Bankes had been warning him about for 15 minutes beforehand.  Having let some dodgy tackles by Forest go, it was surprising that he bothered to start booking their players so late in the game.  Spurs didn’t look like getting a point from the match at the end, with Davies firing high over the bar from 20 yards and Tel having a shot charged down.

The fact that Vicario didn’t have a save to make during the second half showed Tottenham’s domination of the second 45 minutes, but Forest rode their luck to take the points and Spurs were their own worst enemy by letting the visitors get a lead to hold onto.  The lack of application by some players will probably mean that Ange Postecoglou will suffer the sins of his players come the end of the season.

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