SkyBet EFL Championship
at the City Ground
Nottingham Forest (1) 2
Joe Lolley 27, Joao Carvalho 70
Millwall (0) 2
Shaun Williams 74, Lee Gregory 90+1
Admission £20. Programme £3.
Attendance: 25,753 (inc. 387 away).
At the outset, I would like to thank the Retford branch of the Nottingham Forest Supporters Club (and their pals from Ollerton) for letting me make use of their transport, to make the sixty odd mile round trip to their regular place of football worship. 'Twas a cheap, cheerful and no hassle way to travel, from Kettlewells coach depot, a few hundred yards from my home, to a quick getaway drop off point virtually outside the stadium itself.
If you live in the vicinity of East Retford upon Idle and ever fancy going to watch Forest, the coach leaves from the coach depot on Grove Street, opposite the brilliantly called 'Packet Inn', two hours before the kick off time for home games. Kettlewells have the contact details if you need them.
There was also another bus in the depot waiting to go to Hillsborough, for the Sheffield Wednesday v West Bromwich Albion, that also picks open route at Worksop, but, understandably, that one wasn't filling up very fast... and the few ashen faced and severely depressed looking people who were on board, were peering across enviously at the Nottingham bound charabanc.
As it happens, though none of them would've anticipated such a thing happening; the two sets of fans were heading off to see their team(s) grab one point (apiece) from the jaws of three (each), by virtue of them both letting two goal leads slip away... and having to settle for 2-2 draws.
I've gone on record earlier this season and towards the end of the last one, that Forest boss Aitor Karanka, has made the City Ground the sort of place where a complete neutral can turn up and enjoy a game because of the way he's got his team playing, as he expensively rebuilds them. And having read a few criticisms aimed the way of their manager, I was puzzled no end... until tonight.
Maybe I've just been fortunate, to have caught them on a few good days of late... perhaps tonight was a one off and not typical of the kind of showing Karanka's side have been displaying recently, but, either way, this was, at times, a scrappy, vapid and non-performance, where the home side didn't show any cohesion or fluidity whatsoever. And it wasn't because the visitors had turned up and opted to play for a draw, with ten men behind the ball, suffocating the life out of their hosts attacking intentions; because in actual fact, what unfolded out on the field of play, was quite the opposite, and please excuse the ubiquitous use of punnery herein, at this juncture, Millwall were having the 'lions' share of forwardly mobile play, while producing a string of decent goal scoring chances.
I would even go so far as to say, that for the first twenty minutes or so, there was only really one team in this game... and it barely even acted as a wake up call for the under siege hosts, when Lee Gregory rattled their crossbar with a thumping header, inside the opening five minutes.
Costel Pantilimon, the Reds keeper had to be alert from the word go, with Tom Elliott forcing him into making a good stop across to his left from a downwards header.
The home side countered, but Adlene Guedioura's shot flew wide of the target, as a well drilled Millwall defence prevented Forest from creating any chances in and around their goalmouth, with Jake Cooper in particular winning any hopeful airborne balls that Forest launched into the visitors area.
Millwall's target man Elliott, beat Pantilimon to the ball and laid it off to Shane Ferguson, but the defiant keeper recovered quickly and did well to tip the Millwall number eleven's shot round the post. right-footed volley was tipped wide.
Pantilimon got his hand to Cooper's goal bound header from the resulting corner and then positioned himself well to get behind Shaun Williams strike from twelve yards that sat up awkwardly as it took a bounce. Pantilimon is a great shot stopper and a commanding presence in the air, but when he retires from the game, I hope that he doesn't take a job as a postman in Retford, because his distribution and delivery skills still require an awful lot of practice. Having collected the ball, he almost seems to be afraid of it... as if he imagines the sphere in his grasp is a ticking time bomb, that he's got to throw away, as a matter of urgency... and any old direction will do.
Having withstood the visitors early pressure, Forest went close to scoring when Joe Lolley and Ben Osborn combined to create an opening for Lewis Grabban, who diverted the balkl past the wrong side of the upright (for old times sake) against his former club.
Pantilimon denied Cooper once again and the home side quickly switched play, from one end to the other... and somewhat against the run of play, Joe Lolley gave Forest the lead in the twenty seventh minute, shooting through a cluster of three Millwall players from just outside the area past the unsighted Ben Amos
Millwall continued to push forward and Pantilimon twice thwarted Gregory, yet it was almost 2-0 just before the interval, when Mahlon Romeo made a last ditch clearance to keep Jack Robinson's shot from finding it's way into the Millwall net.
HT: Forest 1 v Lions 0
Millwall continued to take the game to Forest after half time, with the hosts playing almost as if they were a visiting side setting out their stall to absorb opposition pressure. Well, they were for the time being at least.
Lolley tried his luck from long range again, but he shot high into the Trent End, with a wild attempt, that would easily have cleared the old terracing that used to stand at that end of the ground, en route to splashing into the river.
Jiri Skalak's cross, appeared to have finally found the key to open Forest up and find a way past the stubborn Pantilimon, but Shane Ferguson struggled to deal with the bouncing ball right in front of the goal-line and another chance went begging.
In the sixty seventh minute, the floodlights on the main stand side of the City Ground went out, causing a delay of some fourteen minutes. The hold up also temporarily broke up Millwall's head of steam momentum too and shortly after the restart, Joao Carvalho doubled the hosts lead, with a well flighted free kick towards the to right hand corner of the goal, that Ben Amos got the slightest of touches on, before the ball crashed against the woodwork and down over the line, as a scrum of players followed it into the back of the net.
There are no guarantees in football, that you'll take out of the game, what you've put into it.
A Forest fan a few rows away broke into a snatch of a 'Daft Punk' song: "We're up all night for good fun, We're up all night to get lucky!" It didn't catch on, but he did have a point.
By this point, the Millwall following tucked away in the corner of the Bridgford End, will have been sick of the sight of Forest's Romanian keeper, as he held onto the ball as Elliott's header was the thickness of a prison roll up away from finding it's way across the line from Ferguson's free kick.
But having been instrumental in seemingly coaxing the three points for his side, out of a bad night at the office, when they had been substandard (at best) and indisputably lucky at times; Pantilimon got caught in two minds whether to kick or throw the ball out of his area and Ferguson predicted exactly where the ball was going when it was thrown out past the left hand side of the area and he nipped in and made a quick interception before picking out Williams, who towered above the Reds defence before halving the deficit with a well placed header.
Confusion reigned in the Forest defence as Millwall were denied a penalty and Cooper had a goal disallowed.
As the game slipped into stoppage time, with just about every player on the pitch trying to get a decisive touch on the ball amid a goalmouth scramble, Gregory stabbed it across the line with an emphatic 'toe poke' to level things up.
To be fair, it was the very least that Millwall deserved and they almost snatched a winner in the fourth minute of added time, when Cooper was a fraction away from connecting with Ferguson's knock across the face of Pantilimon's goal.
FT: Nottingham Forest 2 v Millwall 2
Millwall will probably win games this season, where they don't play as well as they did tonight.
While Forest will know that they got off lightly, in spite of having led two-nil at one point.
The Lions entertain manager-less Aston Villa at the New Den on Saturday, while Forest face a tricky away trip to Teesside where they will face Aitor Karanka's former club, second placed Middlesbrough.
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| Calm down you lot... it's my bus ticket... not a membership card. |
Thanks once again to the Retford Branch of the NFSC... I that hope your team play better than they did tonight, the next time you turn out to support them.
My next game will be: Saturday 6.10.18, Birmingham City v Rotherham United in the EFL Championship, which is being played at St. Andrew's. It will be my fiftieth football match of the current season.
