Sweden demolished Northern Ireland on Tuesday evening with Nottingham Forest winger Anthony Elanga dropped to the bench.
Clearly, Jon Dahl Tomasson was left unimpressed with Elanga in the last outing – an embarrassing 1-0 defeat to Luxembourg in Sweden’s latest friendly.
Elanga played as a forward in that game, and it didn’t really suit his blistering pace with a somewhat experimental Sweden team coming unstuck,
In this one, Forest star Elanga was forced to play a bit-part role. However, he did come on and make quite the impact on a memorable night for the Swedes.
Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images
Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images
The Forest man is in fine form of late and the hope will be that he can continue his current form until the end of the season.
Forest are in the mix to reach the Champions League and have occupied third place in the Premier League since December 29th.
On Tuesday, Elanga was introduced in the 71st minute and five minutes later he had a goal to his name, slotting home after a well-worked corner routine.
Fotbollskanalen scored him a rating of pass and said: “Scorer after just five minutes on the pitch. Stayed nicely at the far post and put Eliasson’s cross into the goal.”
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Elanga is vitally important to Forest
Nobody in the Forest team comes close to Elanga when it comes to pace. He often leaves defenders for dead and down the right-hand side, he’s a constant threat.
Against Ipswich last time out, he scored twice in a game for the first time and was a real threat through the middle of the pitch.
It’s great that Elanga is adding more strings to his bow and he’s going to be a really big player for the Reds between now and the end of the campaign.
At 22-years-old, the future is very bright for Elanga and Forest can benefit from his increase in confidence in recent weeks.