Pre Season Friendly
at the City Ground
Nottingham Forest (1) 1
Albert Adomah 33
Crystal Palace (0) 0
Attendance: 14,719 (inc. 580 away fans)
Nottingham Forest:
Muric, Cash (Darikwa 83), Milosevic (Dawson 63), Worrall, Robinson, Watson, Semedo (Yacob 73), Silva (Ameobi 79), Lolley (Osborn 88), Adomah (Appiah 63), Grabban (Johnson 88).Unused subs - Steele, Smith, Figueiredo, Ribeiro, Walker.
Hennessey, Van Aanholt, Dann, Kelly, Ward, Meyer, Milivojevic, McArthur, Townsend, Schlupp, Benteke.
Unused subs - Henderson, Woods, Hobbs, Riedewald, Wickham, Sorloth, Daly.
The Eagles certainly had enough chances to have warranted claiming some kind of result, particularly in the second half, but it wasn't to be... and the new(ish) Forest manager: Sabri Lamouchi, saw his side fashion a win, of sorts, to mark the occasion of his first ever home game in charge.
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| Them there THE66POW stickers get bloody everywhere! |
The hosts had four new signings on display tonight, for an expectant home crowd to run the rule over... and one of them: Albert Adomah, who recently arrived in Nottingham from Aston Villa, scored what proved to be the only goal of the game, in the thirty third minute, when Wayne Hennessey, the Welsh national team's keeper, had pushed Joe Lolley's punt forward away from Lewis Grabban, but the Ghanaian international had anticipated well, and his presence of mind (and instinct) to follow the ball in, on the off chance that it might fall his way, proved to be an excellent decision, as he shot just inside the right hand post.
Mr Lamouchi will have been relieved that, at least somebody had remembered to put their shooting boots on tonight, because only moments before, Lolley and Semedo had both miscued shots with alarming inaccuracy inside a minute of each other, with the latter holding his arms aloft for several seconds after his howler; either acknowledging his error, or claiming to have got the ball even closer to the corner flag than Lolley had managed, as though it was some kind of a personal bet between the two of them.
Christian Benteke and Andros Townsend both went close for Palace, but even though it seemed for all the world that if they kept on pressing in the final third for long enough a goal would be forthcoming eventually, it didn't happen.
Aro Muric, the Reds keeper, had a good game in what was his first City Ground start, he commanded his area well, oozed confidence, looked very comfortable all night, and besides making one absolutely worldly of a save, also showed no hesitation whatsoever, when releasing the ball swiftly and distributing it with great accuracy, which is something that has often been Costel Pantilimon's Achiles heel during his otherwise consistent performances between the sticks for Forest.
FT: Nottingham Forest 1 v Crystal Palace 0
A tough test for the home side, who just about ground out a win, against a Palace side who were perhaps more than a little unfortunate not to have at least secured a draw.
