Nottingham Forest 1-0 West Ham Utd (14/8/22)

[Morocco Mole]

Credit to Forest, Henderson in goal pulled off plenty of good saves, Neco Williams for his attacking and crossing and Brennan Johnson stood out to me.

Their defence was better than ours. On paper and on the pitch. If that doesn’t focus the mind on what we need to do before the window closes nothing will.

[MrHammer73]

Might be an unpopular opinion but I think Rice’s game has been effected by the constant media morons that are desperate to point out he should be scoring 10 goals a season. Only reason he takes pens now is because people are desperate to make him into something he’s not and he feels like he HAS to score goals. Leave him to do what he’s good at, which is being a brilliant defensive midfielder.

Agreed. He can be one of the best defensive midfielders in the game but wants to change into a a Lampard/Gerrard clone. His attacking game is not that great. We need a defensive midfielder with our poor defence and that should be Rice's role full stop.

Moyes needs to be strong about this or this will be a Payet/Bilic thing where the player is given everything.

[OFT]

There was one against Man City, and UTJ, Gnome, & Pinky, were all at the game.

Ah! somehow missed the City one,
Ta DL

[rossmundo]

A Forest team who were bang up for their first PL game in 20+ years

This was always going to be difficult.

No Sorry, Forrest where there for the taking, we were dog **** today. You reap what you sow.

[Plashet Grove Pete]

Looked nailed on. Maybe on the replay Zouma tugged the defenders shirt first, but the ref today was abysmal. Fully expected him to not give the pen he actually gave!

Did the ref give it? I thought it was VAR who made him go and look?

[kitthehammer]

I think there is only our matches v brentford last season which i’ve been more annoyed by.
But rather than it being the other teams use if the dark arts , this was down to our own stupidity and the ref.
We still seem to be two weeks behind on match fitness (mentally & physically).
Bowen, rice, soucek all off the boil.

[Mullhull]

Fair play. We have different views.
I guess we shall see how things work out.
For me, I don’t think a club our size/not mega rich can spend £35 million (or whatever it was) on a player and not start him. That’s why I’m doubting he was a Moyes choice. Take Zouma, bought last season and started immediately.
I don’t disagree on the outcome of todays result.
Fornals/Benrahma creative (AM) midfielders, so why they mainly playing on the LW and not AM?

I can't tell you all of Benrahma's assists at Brentford etc but I believe most of them are crosses? I could be wrong.

Fornals was AM today, I don't think he was particularly awful. But you can't feed Antonio those sorts of balls, he won't make them.

They had lady luck on their side. I can't say it's going to get easier for us against Brighton but we need to beat Viborg this Thursday.

[Captain Corelli]

Great, industrious play from Benrahma today, from back to front. Do this week in and week out, then the position is his own.

I'm a tad worried that Benny might have been giving Forest a 'come and get me' performance! Especially if he knows Moyes doesn't have faith in him.

[Morocco Mole]

Soucek is a pants footballer. He's a threat still, but anyone who can't see that we can do better than him in Central midfield is being obtuse.

100% correct although perversely I thought he was fine today.

That said, once you go one nil down against limited opposition surely he’s the one to sacrifice for an extra forward? Especially when Fornals and Antonio were playing pretty well. Scamacca on, Fornals drops in next to Rice, go for it.

[DusseldorfHammer]

A Forest team who were bang up for their first PL game in 20+ years

This was always going to be difficult.

No question. We still didn't look like a team, with Top-8 aspirations. Lacked that bit of cool and arrogance. We looked rattled from the start.

[Cuenca 'ammer]

still puzzling over what Lanzini brings to the team these days...

keeps the ball moving in the defensive third and up to the halfway line, but when he gets over that, well it seems all creativity leaves him..

[Garry]

Got Brighton next week they will play us off the park and with a rest we play Thursday.

[happydaystoytown]

Going toe to toe and losing to a very poor, newly promoted side, is not a good look for the season ahead.

Poor old Chigwell Hammer got shouted down for suggesting there was unrest in the camp, well it's not looking very happy so far, maybe he just knows stuff!

Viborg is massive and then Brighton....

[Oldun]

Just one of those days.

[Rio]

Some overly harsh knee jerk criticism being dished out. Ahh yes we lost its scapegoat time.

Let’s be honest it was never going to be a walk in the park. A forest side on the up, newly promoted, new signings wanting to make their mark, last years squad fighting for the place and wanting to cement places. A bouncing ground. Oppressively hot conditions et. etc

I’m not saying we were superb, because quite clearly we weren’t. But we weren’t as awful as some are making out. A disjointed back line struggled early on, particularly Ben Johnson who as much as I want to succeed never fills me with confidence. In any position let alone an unnatural one. The drinks break came at a vital moment. It allowed Zouma & Moyes to get him back into some sort of condition to face up to the opposition because before that they were dragging him everywhere.

We were desperately unlucky with the 2 efforts that hit the underside of the bar. The disallowed goal was probably correct in the WOKE era of football but if any of the 6 clubs who tried to split from the league had scored it, it would have stood. Overall I thought we were the better side. Hampered by a couple of senior pros not being at the races.

Dec had a poor game. Put himself on the back foot with getting in the book for a couple of needless fouls far too early in the game. The less said about the penalty the better. He never fills me with confidence when he steps up. Todays weak effort should be his last. Cresswell should be the one taking them. On the plus side he did sit back far more which allowed Soucek to play a roll more akin to the Covid year one. He got himself into a lot of good positions, worked the defence. An outstanding performance? No. A solid if unspectacular one? Yes

Bowen had another shocker. Offensively he offered nothing. Even his dead ball delivery was abysmal. He was found wanting defensively too. Not tracking back properly, allowing too many easy balls to filter from that side into dangerous areas, which exposed Coufal. Hard to shine when you’re being let down. At least Vlad couldn’t be accused of lacking desire and determination. On the other wing Benny had a decent game and working in tandem with Aaron really showed what was lacking on the opposite side. Those 2 worked as a pair to good effect.

Michail should have been hooked at half time. The officiating was poor but his frustration was on the verg3 of boiling over and leaving us a man short at times. If something that’s crept into his game more and more. Maturity hasn’t

I was nonplussed with the substitution of Fornals. Thought he was playing well in that central position. Some incisive passing, a conduit of great worth, grew into the game and began to make us tick. I couldn’t understand why he was made to depart when Jarrod was allowed to remain.

A defeat to a scuffed shot, a missed pen, dubious refereeing and some poor luck. Yep. Execute the lot of em

[Wilko1304]

FWIW, we are not the first team to look a bit shell-shocked against a rampant new team on their first home game since promotion. Brentford battered Arsenal last year, but Arsenal got into things as time went on.

I was always worried about our start. City then a newly promoted side's first game at home? You'd have to have never paid attention to the PL if you didnt think those were hard games.

By the end, we'd earned at least a draw and really could have scored four or five. Fair play to Forest though, they made those minor moments/turning points matter, and they scared our defence. Thought Cooper's subs were very good, too.

[Oldun]

If we was that poor and still made as many chances as we did and get a good goal disallowed and a penalty,f*** knows what will happen when we play well .

[Crouchend_Hammer]

Soucek is a pants footballer. He's a threat still, but anyone who can't see that we can do better than him in Central midfield is being obtuse.

Yes I agree
He missed two very good chances qs well today
Moyes is not going to replace him in a million years though

[Vienna]

This isn't ice hockey, Antonio cleaned the forest player out with arms in front of him, it was a clear foul.

['stone hammer]

Michail should have been hooked at half time. The officiating was poor but his frustration was on the verg3 of boiling over and leaving us a man short at times. If something that’s crept into his game more and more. Maturity hasn’t

Agree with all your post except this bit; I thought Scamacca offered far less in terms of hold-up play than Antonio did. I think it might've been better to have them both on the pitch and not bother bringing Lanzini on.