Ola Aina scores Nottingham Forest’s opening goal against Brentford.Photograph: David Klein/Reuters
Finally. Fortress Gtech was breached, its keep torn asunder by the pragmatism of Nuno Espírito Santo. The Premier League season’s surprise package took down the best home record as Nottingham Forest solidified the top-four place for Christmas they had kicked off in after Manchester City’s latest disaster.
The highest-ranked yet visitors to the stadium where goals and victories had previously rained down for Thomas Frank’s team kept Brentford at bay with a mix of discipline and cutting edge, their goals from Ola Aina and Anthony Elanga both pincer movements seizing on defensive disorganisation.
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With all-out attack will come openings. Frank’s team’s commitment to playing on the front failed to bring them early fruit. As is habitual, they went straight at Forest only to be eventually and methodically picked off.
Forest appeared light in midfield ballast as they attempted to ride out that early storm. Ryan Yates, Forest’s agitator, was only fit enough for the bench, leaving Morgan Gibbs-White and Elliot Anderson as the midfield pairing in front of a back three. Yoane Wissa’s run and ball inside fed Mikkel Damsgaard, usually Brentford’s creator, who forced Matz Sels to save in the fourth minute. Next, Bryan Mbeumo, from the same wing, set up Nathan Collins for a header just wide.
That Nuno had filled his team with pace to use on the counter and support target-man Chris Wood will surprise nobody, though having been so buzzy at Old Trafford a fortnight ago, that early torpor was surprising if only temporary.
There were nerves, too. Morato, making a first Forest start in that defensive trio, shanked a ball high and spinning behind him, inviting Wissa to volley just over. These proved the moments where Brentford needed to take advantage and frustration began to grow.
Forest fans, never slow to attack officialdom, barracked Michael Oliver, the referee, for booking Murillo for a perfectly bookable offence, a high boot on Wissa. Their team’s first chance eventually came when Wood headed Neco Williams’s cross down, forcing a fine save from Mark Flekken, though the New Zealander knew a better header would have opened the scoring.
That came as part of a momentum shift that had Frank reaching for his notepad, trying not to smudge his words in the soaking conditions. His danger signals proved correct and Forest’s goal soon came, from a familiar route, Williams granted space on the left, Wood acting as dummy. Aina met his fellow wing-back’s pass with a low finish.
Nuno being Nuno, his three-man defence thus began to operate as a five, rarely tempted into becoming a trio. Williams’s wings were clipped, though Aina remained an occasional raider. Only Chelsea and Liverpool have won more away points than Forest’s 17 this season, thanks to a goals-against tally of top-four standard, only Liverpool and Arsenal’s defences better.
Those three more away points were heading up the M1 once Elanga scored their second, seizing on Keane Lewis-Potter’s misread of a wind-assisted ball and expertly placed into the bottom corner beyond Flekken. That had been made possible by Nikola Milenkovic’s composure in stopping Damsgaard’s solo run. A further tackle on Kevin Schade showed off the Serb’s reading of the game.
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The Gtech’s honour would not be surrendered meekly. With Frank urging on his team, Brentford pushed for a way back, though mostly ineffectively. The pattern of the last 30 minutes of the game settled into battering on the Forest door. Kristoffer Ajer’s volley forced a fine save from Sels but that was as good as it got for a team that usually finds goals so easy to come by.
On came Yates to resume ratting out the second balls in midfield. To see out victory required discipline and to feed into Brentford’s frustrations, a fair amount of gamesmanship and time-wasting were employed by Yates et al. A fifth away win of the season, their storming of the previously impregnable, added dreams of the Champions League to their fans’ festive celebrations.