Nottingham Forest Brush The Toffees Aside

Nuno Espirito Santo’s side overcame the in-form Everton in a comfortable 2-0 win to cap off 2024. Goals from Chris Wood and Morgan Gibbs-White led Nottingham Forest to three points and second place in the Premier League table.

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Lineups:

Everton:

Pickford

Mykolenko

Tarkowski

Branthwaite

Young

Mangala

Gueye

Doucoure

Harrison

Broja

Ndiaye

Nottingham Forest:

Sels

Aina

Morato

Milenkovic

Williams

Anderson

Gibbs-White

Elanga

Sosa

Wood

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The game began with a huge chance for Everton, the main man being Iliman Ndiaye, goalscorer in the 1-1 draw against Manchester City on Boxing Day. After receiving the ball from Docuoure, Ndiaye swiftly accelerated with the ball at his foot around defender Nikola Milenković before sidestepping past Morato. Slightly unbalanced at this point, the Senegalese international, rightly so, took the shot on just within the penalty area. However, the height behind the shot was too much as the ball sailed over the crossbar and into the Park End, causing no trouble for Nottingham Forest goalkeeper Matz Sels.

It didn't take long for Forest to respond to the danger caused by Everton, as in the 12th minute a lofted ball over the top of the Everton backline by Morgan Gibbs-White was planted perfectly for Chris Wood. The New Zealand international headed it to Elanga, just to the right of himself, who played a headed through ball into Jordan Pickford's penalty area for Chris Wood to control and lob over the goalkeeper in front of the Gwladys Street goal. The striker for Forest this season has now racked up an impressive eleven goals, placing him joint fourth, alongside Newcastle's Isak, for the Golden Boot.

Within the first half, there was also a golden chance for Paraguayan international Ramon Sosa to extend Nottingham Forest's advantage to two. Again, it was Morgan Gibbs-White who played the ball through the gap between the Everton centre-backs, and at the final moment, when the simple job was to place it into the bottom corner, Sosa scuffed the shot as it headed wide of the bottom left-hand corner of the net, a huge chance to more than likely confirm a victory for Forest in the first forty-five minutes.

Within the second half, when Everton needed to relax with a period of calmness to pull themselves back into the game, the opposite occurred. A moment of madness as a loose ball between Ukrainian fullback Mykolenko and centre-half James Tarkowski went amiss due to a period of miscommunication that occurred, allowing Elanga to pounce. It was three attackers versus five defenders, and somehow Morgan Gibbs-White, who earlier was pulling the strings as a playmaker in the centre of the pitch, managed to get a shot off whilst Doucoure was scrambling back to defend, placing the ball firmly into the top left corner, then celebrating towards the away end.

Things could have gone from bad to worse for the Blues as an attack led by Nottingham Forest caused Jordan Pickford to make a triple save. A shot by Sosa was spilt, allowing Williams to have a go, which was blocked but fell into the path of Sosa again, who had a second try, forcing Pickford to palm it wide. Many Evertonians clapped, but in reality the opportunity should never have fallen to Forest in the first place.

In the last twenty minutes or so, Sean Dyche made some attacking additions, bringing on Beto, Lindstrom, and Calvert-Lewin to hopefully create some magic to get the Toffees back into the game. However, this was not the case, as a repeated ritual of playing the ball out to the flanks and crossing it in the box, hoping one of the strikers in the penalty area would win the header in the air, occurred frequently. As the clock ran down, with the tactic failing most of the time, a sense of finality grew as it was apparent the Blues were not coming back from the two-goal deficit. The referee, Tony Harrington, blew the whistle for full time, meaning Nottingham Forest climb to second place in the league table, whilst Everton falls one place, into 16th, as Crystal Palace defeated Southampton 2-1 with a stunning strike from Eberechi Eze.

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Matchday 19:

Sunday 29th December:

Leicester 0-2 Manchester City

Crystal Palace 2-1 Southampton

Everton 0-2 Nottingham Forest

Fulham 2-2 Bournemouth

Tottenham 2-2 Wolves

West Ham 0-5 Liverpool

Monday 30th December:

Aston Villa 19:45 Brighton

Ipswich 19:45 Chelsea

Manchester United 20:00 Newcastle

Wednesday 1st January:

Brentford 17:30 Arsenal

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Thank you for reading my match report!