Forest To Face Fenerbahce

Nottingham Forest provided one of their best performances of the season at the City Ground last night to beat Ferencvaros in the Europa League group stages and set up a tie in the playoff round against Fernerbache of Turkey.

The Reds failed to make one of eight automatic slots for the round of sixteen but did finish thirteenth in the group stages to ensure they get a second leg home tie against the Istanbul outfit, who include the likes of Ederson, Fred, Caglar Soyuncu and Youssef En Nesyri in their makeup.

Beating Fernerbahce could set up a tie against either Real Betis or Midtjylland in the round of sixteen, the Reds having already played both when managed earlier in the season by Ange Postecoglu.

Forest’s form in the Europa League hadn’t been spectacular, bar a solid opening week result in Seville, and decent disposing’s of Porto and Malmo, they underwhelmed drawing 0-0 at Sturm Graz and despite winning 1-0 were pretty below par at Utrecht before Christmas, Forest then started the year badly with defeat at Braga last week, during a game where the Reds players were booed off the field of play.

But a win against Brentford on Sunday, and a confident performance against the Hungarian champions at the City Ground, will ensure the Reds go into the next stage of Europe with belief, they’ll also take on Crystal Palace next spurred by a good night’s work Trentside.

The Reds up against Robbie Keane’s Ferencvaros played more open and freely and after an early scare when the away side hit the post, took the lead on 17 minutes when Ryan Yates won the ball to cross low into the box. No Forest player had made it into their opponents area but that didn’t stop Bence Otvos deflecting into his own net, bitter sweat for Ryan Yates who had to endure similar fate in Braga last week.

Yates played well, and he set Igor Jesus up for a second goal, the Brazilian taking a low shot on early to catch out former Walsall goalkeeper David Grof, and in the second half Jesus finished sublimely to make it 3-0, after a Ibrahim Sangare lofted pass, the forward volleyed first time hard into the corner of the net, his sixth goal for Forest in Europe this season, already surpassing the great John Robertson who twice helped Forest to continental glory.

Forest crowned off a spectacular night with a fourth, from the spot late on, after a tough start to his Reds career, James McAtee played brilliantly, like so many others, but after Morgan Gibbs-White recently missed, he was given penalty kicking duties and sent the keeper the wrong way to make it four, the Reds biggest win on the continent since 1979.

A pleasing performance with so many positives, Forest will now look towards Crystal Palace, but with one eye on Fernerbache to come, the European dream lives on.

Forest: Sels, Abbott, Milenkovic (Murillo 78), Morato, Williams (Aina 66), Yates, Sangare (Gibbs-White 66), McAtee, Dominguez (Bakwa 84), Ndoye, Igor Jesus (Hudson-Odoi 66).