A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER

A THING OF BEAUTY IS A JOY FOREVER

Nottingham Forest beat Liverpool at Anfield for the first time this season in a match which ended in victory for Nottingham Forest. We say this because we're sick of hearing that the last time Forest won at Anfield was in 1969, as if generations of Forest fans have spent the intervening years unable to live productive lives because of it. So, as far as we're concerned, the last time Forest beat Liverpool at Anfield was in 2024, two days' ago.

Despite having hired their own officials and commentary team, Liverpool never looked like the team which had scored seven goals in three straight wins. This was possibly because, unlike other Premier League teams, several of their players had returned jaded from international duty. Or because some of them were grumbling about new contracts. Or because several might be thinking that if they wanted to work under a useless Dutch manager, they could have joined Man United. Or simply because Forest outmatched them. We will never know.

The match began with the kick off, and it was not long before Forest's tactics - using a packed midfield to stifle the home side and Ryan Yates to kick the crap out of Robertson and Mac Allister or indeed anyone in red - became clear. Forest's defensive resilience was so strong it reduced Salah, or some bloke who looked a bit like him, to moping around in a profound sulk. Diaz could only kick the ball against some wood. Diogo Jota headed meekly into Matz Sels' hands. Alexander Armstrong-Jones spent the afternoon labouring under the delusion that he was better than everybody else so he could complain about anything he wanted to. That was about it as far as Liverpool were concerned. Very little went right for them. It was as if they and their supporters were singing the wrong tune, like that drunk bloke who steps up on the karaoke stage, murders "I Did It My Way", and vomits on his shoes. Forest, on the other hand, did almost everything right. If Ryan Yates had stopped Diaz slithering through on goal, and Matz Sels had resisted the temptation to behave like a Harlem Globetrotter, their performance would have been perfect.

As it was, Liverpool received plenty of warnings about the danger of Forest's counterattacking, what with Wood, MGW and Elanga all having serious chances to score. The goal, when it came, was a thing of beauty. Another dithering Liverpool attack was broken up and Elanga hared down the right wing, eventually curving a beautiful cross-field ball to Hudson-Odoi. CHO then did what he does - cut in from the left and curled it beyond the keeper, the ball clipping the inside of the post on its way to the back of the net. Dreamland. As the doom-mongers are so fond of saying: "It had been coming". Sadly for Liverpool, the fact that they didn't see CHO's signature move coming is evidence of a lack of proper preparation. Complacency? Arrogance? We will never know.

What we do know is that Nuno and his merry men got things magnificently right. The pressing, the defensive assurance, the substitutions, the counter-attacking threat, the 100 minutes of unrelenting effort, all were brilliantly effective.

What we also know is that, as we write, Liverpool haven't beaten Forest at Anfield for over 2500 minutes. And counting.

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