Richarlison’s late goal wasn’t enough to spark a comeback as Nottingham Forest left N17 with all three points in a 2-1 win on Monday evening.
The Brazilian struck with three minutes remaining for his 20th goal in our colours but Forest had already taken a two-goal advantage through Elliot Anderson and Chris Wood after just 17 minutes and, despite a strong performance, we couldn’t find the goals we needed to salvage a result.
We dominated the match stats in every metric apart from goals, enjoying 70 per cent possession, having 22 shots and six on target with the visitors touching the ball in our box on just four occasions all game. But they defended their advantage well with goalkeeper Matz Sels making a couple of fine saves to deny us on the few occasions we did get a good sight of goal.
The early minutes were all played out in the Forest half, although it was the visitors with the lead after five minutes. Anderson fizzed a pass in to Morgan Gibs-White who turned and hit a snap-shot which Guglielmo Vicario pushed away for a corner. From the set-piece, Pedro Porro’s near-post header fell to Anderson on the edge of the area and he struck a wicked drive which took a flick off Rodrigo Bentancur and beat Vicario for power.
The visitors had the ball in the net five minutes later, Wood tucking home from Anderson’s cross although it was ruled out by VAR for offside but they didn’t have too wait long to double their lead. It was Wood again with the finish, this time a glancing header in the 17th minute from Anthony Elanga’s excellent cross.
We tested Sels for the first time three minutes later, Wilson Odobert’s low curler needing to be tipped around the post while Mathys Tel headed over at the back post and Dejan Kulusevski drilled straight at Sels as we applied a bit of pressure in search of a quick response. Possession-wise, we were well on top and should have reduced the deficit with two good chances just before the interval. First up, Neco Williams fluffed his clearance from Pedro Porro’s cross but Tel lashed the loose ball wide before another Porro centre found Richarlison at the far post however he sent his header past the upright.
A double switch at half-time saw both centre-halves replaced – Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero swapped for Ben Davies and Kevin Danso – and we continued to play on the front foot, seeing plenty of the ball. But Forest were always a threat on the counter and Gibbs-White flashed a shot just wide from a Wood flick 10 minutes into the second period. A stunning goal-line clearance prevented us from pulling a goal back in the 63rd minute when Kulusevski’s near-post flick from a corner beat Sels but not Harry Toffolo’s excellent intervention, while Richarlison couldn’t believe his eyes when a Forest clearance came to him with just Sels to beat, only for the keeper to rush out and smother his effort.
The visitors were very much content to sit back and let us have the ball in front of them, challenging us to find a way through and, despite so much of possession, we were finding a route to goal hard to come by. When we did create a great chance – Porro picking out Richarlison with another delivery into the box – Sels was there again, diving to his right to tip the Brazilian’s header away.
Finally though, we did find the target with three minutes of normal time remaining and it was that same combination, Porro – making his 100th Spurs appearance – sending a cross in from the right and this time, Richarlison’s glancing header was out of reach of Sels and bounced into the far corner. Five minutes of stoppage time gave us hope however Forest did what they could to stop the flow of the game and we were unable to apply any late pressure, slipping to an eighth home league defeat of the season.