Nottingham Forest vs Man united highlights
Watch Nottingham Forest vs Man united Highlights as Antony scores for man united making them move to the third position of the table.
Erik ten Hag’s side were kicking themselves on Thursday night after blowing a two-goal lead at home to Sevilla in their Europa League quarter-final first leg but after domestic results went their way on Saturday they didn’t make the same mistake here, capitalising at the City Ground to boost their chances of a top-four finish.
Antony scored the opener from close range (32) and then rolled in Diogo Dalot (76) for the second after the impressive Bruno Fernandes had seen a shot pushed onto the bar, with the dominant win moving United six points clear of fifth-placed Tottenham with a game in hand and just eight fixtures remaining.
Forest have now lost 10 times in a row to Man Utd across all competitions, including four times this season – but it could have been different had a VAR call gone in their favour in the first half. They will feel hard done by for not being awarded a penalty with the scores at 0-0 when the ball struck an arm of the nervy Harry Maguire in the box.
There were good chances in the opening 45 for Taiwo Awoniyi, too, with one shot cleared off the line and another blazed over the bar, before Scott McKenna forced the ball onto a post. Felipe then headed over from two yards in the second half just before Dalot’s clincher.
But Forest are now without a win in 10 and remain third-bottom. They are in the relegation zone instead of Everton because of goal difference.
However, Forest responded well and Awoniyi saw his own goal-bound effort blocked by Aaron Wan-Bissaka just a few minutes later. They should have had a penalty on 19 minutes, too, when a corner came down on Maguire’s arm inside the six-yard box – but VAR found in the visitors’ favour.
Steve Cooper on the postmatch interview
Steve Cooper said, “I think it was a penalty [against Maguire], it’s a really poor error. The referee should see it but I understand why he hasn’t because of the angle and the number of players. Why VAR hasn’t is not right?
“It’s another moment that will put big scrutiny on VAR. There’s been a lot of negative decisions over the last few weeks and that’s another one. I’m not going to stand here and say it’s the reason we didn’t win the game, although it could be a second yellow and a red for Maguire, and we could have scored the penalty and gone 1-0 up.
“It has a big impact, I’m really biting my tongue because I don’t want to use it as an excuse for why we lost the game or why we’re in the league position we are in, it’s not. But it’s a bad error. How [VAR] Andy Madley hasn’t seen needs real looking at.”
Erik ten Hag on postmatch interview
Erik ten Hag said, “A solid performance. A well deserved win. The only criticism I could say, it had to be higher, the score. It had to be 3-0 or 4-0. We missed a lot of chances there.
“You want to score and finish and kill the game in the early moments. That’s always important. In big games you don’t create so many chances, so you have to score them.
“We need more goal scorers and I’m happy with Antony. He scored a goal, gave an assist. His start in the game wasn’t that good. I think twice he had to make another choice to bring the ball to Eriksen in a cutback. But after he came into the game and he was continually a threat for the opponent.
“He’s definitely making progress. Against Everton he created many chances and misses and so I’m happy for him today he scored. He had another one, if Aaron Wan-Bissaka was not blocking the shot!”
