Nottingham Forest 3 v Hull City 0 - EFL Championship

Saturday 9th May 2019

SkyBet EFL Championship

at the City Ground

Nottingham Forest (0) 3
Joao Carvalho 72
Karim Ansarifard 76
Joe Lolley pen 82

Hull City (0) 0

Attendance: 29,397 (inc. 1,963 away fans)

During the same week that Forest had just beaten their bitter rivals Derby County, the artists impression reproduced above was released, as the club revealed plans to build a new stand and other facilities, on the site that is currently occupied by the 'Peter Taylor Stand'.
The new development, will bring the capacity of the City Ground up to 38,000, which will make it the largest football stadium in the East Midlands.

Since their victory over the Rams, the Reds have suffered a setback to their play off aspirations, when they lost 2-0 at Stoke City last weekend, while Hull City, who started this game level on points with Martin O'Neill's side, arrived in West Bridgford, on the back of successive home wins against Millwall and Birmingham City.

Nottingham Forest:
Pantilimon, Darikwa, Milosevic, Benalouane, Osborn, Yates, Pele, Colback, Lolley (Goncalves 87'), Bonatini (Ansarifard 59'), Murphy (Carvalho 68')
Unused subs - Steele, Guedioura, Watson, Wague
Hull City:
Marshall, Kane, Burke, de Wijs, Lichaj, Bowen, Henriksen, Irvine, Gorsicki, Pugh (Evandro 54'), Martin (Campbell 54')
Unused subs - Long, Stewart, Milinkovic, McKenzie, Ridgewell 

I don't know whether Hull City were aware of the fact, as they rolled into Nottingham this afternoon, but they were potentially on the verge of creating a record. 

You see, prior to today, Forest had never lost six games in a row, at home, against the same opposition... but the Tigers had won on their last five visits to the City Ground, since 2011, an achievement that they share with West Bromwich Albion, who racked up their five consecutive away wins, a loooong time ago, between 1925 and 1930 to be precise. 

Another sell out crowd, the Reds fifth of the current season, descended on the City Ground, to sit patiently waiting for the game to finally come to life with just a little under twenty minutes left to play.

Yohan Benalouane and Joe Lolley, both had good chances to open the scoring for the hosts, but the former hooked a volley just wide of the upright, while the latter directed his headed opportunity over the bar, after he's been set up by Ryan Yates.

Kamil Grosicki created a good chance for himself, just before the break, having escaped the attentions of Tendayi Darikwa, but his resulting effort provided Costel Pantilimon with the easiest of catches.

Bowen, who is currently sitting on eighteen goals this term for the visitors, had a relatively quiet game by his standards, playing wide left for the first half, before combining up front as part of an attacking duo with Frazier Campbell, who entered the fray ten minutes after half time.

Alexander Milosevic, who is really proving to be a good signing by Martin O'Neill, almost opened the scoring, but was denied by a 'worldly' of a save by David Marshall.
There was a whole lot of huffing and puffing on Forest's part, but the end result and a failure to be clinical around the Hull area, was starting to indicate that this game might be heading for a 0-0 finish.
You would certainly have got very long odds on a final scoreline of 3-0, at any point prior to the final twenty minutes. In fact, just about the only saving grace of this game thus far, had been seeing Pele putting in such a lively performance... that is to say, he looked quite spritely for a seventy eight year old.

I suspect it was another Pele playing today
after all, because this one is quite obviously
plays for Sheffield United instead.

But two substitutions, staggered nine minutes apart, turned this game on it's head, with Karim Ansarifard coming on first in place of Leo Bonatini, while Joao Carvalho replaced Daryl Murphy... though I'm not entirely sure if some of the cheering when the second substitution was made, was because Murphy was actually going off.
Either way, a little under five minutes after entering the field of play, Carvalho smashed home an unstoppable shot from twenty five yards... as Forest eventually turned up and the crowd, who had been quite subdued for much of the game responded accordingly.

Ansarifard reached the ball first to stab home a second goal for the Reds, after Lolley's curling effort had ricocheted back into play off of the right hand upright.
And there was still time for a third for Forest, when Lolley sent Marshall the wrong way from the penalty spot, after Markus Henriksen had tripped Jack Colback up in the area.
FT: Nottingham Forest 3 v Hull City 0
O'Neill's side stayed in eighth place, still in with a decent chance of a play off place, after an interesting afternoon of Championship results wise elsewhere.
Hull now travel to Norwich City on Wednesday, while Forest welcome Aston Villa to the City Ground on the same night.

Aesthetically, Nottingham Forest have produced some visually stunning programme covers this season... today's certainly stunned me. I understand the logic behind the masked man idea, given that Yohan Benalouane, who scored against Derby County, is wearing a mask during games, to protect his facial injury, but I really hope that the usual artist was having a day off and his understudy knocked this hideous creation together.