Nottingham Forest 1-2 Hull City (EFL Championship) 23.10.11
After going ten league matches without defeat Nottingham Forest have now lost their last two games in what has been a week to forget for Manager Sabri Lamouchi and his players.
Forest went into their home match against struggling Hull City much fancied to pick up the points after falling at Wigan but football is a funny game and as we know there are no easy pairings in the Championship as the Tigers started positively by chomping away at the Forest defence.
In a first half that saw Forest have the lions share of the possession without really threatening a goal it was Hull who went closest with Bowen forcing a good save by Samba before on 38 minutes Elder raced down the left wing to centre for Toral who’s tame shot was deflected in by Northern Irish striker Josh Magennis.
Straight after the break it was same again as Grosicki laid Toral in down the left where Hull had a lot of joy on the night for the Spanish playmaker to square to Jarrod Bowen who coolly slotted home his sixth league goal of the season.
Forest halved the deficit on 52 minutes when Matty Cash ran through a crowd to poke home and might have had a penalty when Sammy Ameobi was tugged back by ex-red Eric Lichaj to no avail.
As Forest pressed Josh Magennis was sent off for a reckless tackle on Ben Watson before Chema Rodriguez sent a header wide in the dying moments of the match.
Before the game a win would have took Forest into second spot in the league but that defeat saw Forest fall out of the playoffs into eighth position with Lamouchi stating “this is a bad moment for us and in bad moments we need to stick together and play simpler and more compact. We need to find the right solution quickly and quickly is Saturday.”
Forest now take on Reading on Saturday at the City Ground needing a win not just to restore confidence but to also get back on track with their promotion push.
Nottingham Forest: Samba, Cash, Worrall, Chema, Robinson (Mir 80), Silva, Watson, Carvalho (Yates 61), Lolley, Grabban, Ameobi (Adomah 73).
Hull City: Long, Lichaj, Burke, de Wijs (Tafazoli 65), Elder, Bowen, Da Silva Lopes, Irvine, Grosicki (Honeyman 73), Toral (Balogh 73), Magennis.
Venue: City Ground (27,624)
*Main image @NFFC Josh Magennis celebrates his goal for Hull before being sent off.
