Match Day Thread Nottingham Forest v Preston North End City Ground 8/12/2018

A week on from the horror second half at Birmingham we face an even tougher task on the banks of the River Trent, still one of my favourite away days and for a change we play there on a Saturday.

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Forest have splurged a bit of cash this summer on a few Portuguese lads but more importantly on Lewis Grabban, far too good for Championship level, however it is the slightly less costly signing of Joe Lolley who seems to be in the form of his life, last season we won 3-0 there with manager Karanka saying it was his worst day in football, well fella we are back, somehow think you will be slightly happier on Saturday.

Nottingham Forest Football Club, often referred to as simply Forest, is a professional football club based in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England. Forest were founded in 1865 and have played home matches at the City Ground since 1898. They compete in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system.

Forest were founder members of the Football Alliance in 1889 before joining the Football League in 1892. They have since mostly competed in the top two League tiers except five seasons in the third tier. Forest won the FA Cup in 1898 and 1959. Their most successful period was in the management reign of Brian Clough and Peter Taylor between 1976 and 1982. With Forest they won the 1977–78 Football League title followed by the 1979 and 1980 European Cups. They also won two Football League Cups at Forest together. After Taylor left Clough won two more League Cups and two Full Members Cups.

They have been on a decent run recently and their owner expects automatic promotion this season, easier said then done.

Team news your guess is as good as mine, seven possible first teamers missed last weeks defeat, Earl weny off at half time with a thigh strain, and Davies was on the bench but wasn't fit enough to play. Apparently Johnson getting closer to fitness be surprised if it is this week. Then we have the goal keeping position after Declan's error last week, suspect Rudd will rightly keep his place if not it will be a huge kick in the nuts for him.


Ref Watch: Nottingham Forest

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For the first time since February, North End will have Steve Martin as the match official for a game when we travel to the City Ground to face Aitor Karanka’s Nottingham Forest this coming weekend.

Last season we saw the referee twice, the home game against Hull City in February and the away game at Wolves back in October 2017.

The 2016/17 campaign he took charge of three North End games, having been the man with the whistle of our home win over Cardiff City in September 2016, our away win at Norwich City in October and the 1-1 home draw with Ipswich Town in January 2017.
The 3-0 win over the Bluebirds was his first clash at Deepdale since the EFL Cup second round victory over Watford in 2015/16, when Marnick Vermijl’s goal won the tie for the Lilywhites.
He also officiated PNE in March 2013 when we drew 0-0 with Leyton Orient. He has, however, refereed North End twice since then on the road – red cards being produced in both encounters.

He sent off Oldham Athletic’s Johnson Clarke-Harris when the Lilywhites beat the Latics 3-1 at Boundary Park in March 2014. And he was also the man in the middle when PNE made the long journey to Havant & Waterlooville in the FA Cup in 2014/15, sending off two Havant players in the live televised match as PNE swept their non-league opponents aside 3-0 thanks to Callum Robinson’s hat-trick.

This weekend his team will see him assisted by Jonathan Hunt and Matthew McGrath, whilst the fourth official will be experienced match referee Eddie Ilderton.

 

Nottingham Forest line-up: Pantilimon, Colback (Murphy, 77), Grabban, Carvalho, Osborn ©, Cash (Dias, 64), Robinson, Lolley, Yacob, Darikwa, Hefele. Subs not used: Steele, Guedioura, Janko, Ansarifard, Appiah.

PNE line-up: Rudd, Clarke ©, Hughes, Browne, Huntington, Davies, Barkhuizen, Gallagher, Moult (Ledson, 73), Johnson (Burke, 90), Barker (Nmecha, 25). Subs not used: Maxwell, Fisher, Storey, Woods.

Attendance: 27,777 (1,402 PNE fans)

Referee: Mr S Martin

It's an odd game having collapsed in a heap last week at Birmingham we pick up a win at Forest a week later and put in a performance that showed a team working for each other, this was a gritty performance againast a good Forest side who simply ran out of ideas.
Four changes from last week, Davies, Johnson and Clark returned from injury and Hughes returned instaed of the injured Earl at left back, looked a stronger side than last week also no change between the stick as Rudd kept his place.
Up against it for most of the first half as Forest came flying out of the traps, they were denied twice when players were through on goal by Rudd and the outstanding Davies, played some wonderful one touch football around our box but the final ball fell to no one on many occasions. Grabban went on one mazy run which should have brought a goal. Cash had a couple of efforts which went narrowly wide, however it was not all one way Barkhuizen had an effort cleared as it's made it's way to the goal, Nmecha failed to see Moult in acres of space.
One thing that helped was Barker getting injured he was replaced by Nmecha who put in a tremendous shift. Level at half time.
Forest on the front foot again at the start of the second period for the first time in four matches didn't concede in the first minute, weathered the early storm and then took the lead from our first corner, Nmecha got the ball near the byline in the second phase got towards the goal and fied across the face of the goal Moult antipated got in first goal(video underneath)
Could we survive yep, we did with in truth only one effort which caused Rudd to make a save and that was a header from Murphy late on, Ledson could have doubled the lead but Pantilimon got down to just about save. Bit hectic to the end but we held on and took three big points.

Nottingham Forest manager Aitor Karanka said:

"I think the only thing we missed was scoring goals. In the first half in particular, we played really well and we should have been winning 2-0 or 3-0 by half time, if not by more.

"But we did not play the same in the second half. We finished the game with Lewis Grabban and Daryl Murphy up front and we started to play in the wrong way; we started to play long balls and we do not know how to play in that way.

"I do not know if it is difficult to retain the dominance we had in the first half for 90 minutes - but that is what we have to do. In the Championship, every single mistake you make is punished.

Preston North End manager Alex Neil said:

"We have now lost one game in 11 which is some going at this level. And we have still got four or five players out, players who are key figures. Ben Pearson is a talisman for us and Callum Robinson is our top scorer.

"We knew that if we went toe-to-toe with them, it would be a tough game. We had a plan in place, we wanted to be narrow and stop them playing in the pockets they like to occupy.

"I thought our gameplan worked very well. But it is one thing having a plan and it is another carrying it out. I thought the players carried it out to a tee."

 

A large proportion of possession amounts to nothing if a team does not score and especially so if its defence falls asleep at set plays.