Forest v Fulham - Match Thread

Mornin, thanks for posting. Spot on in your summing up of the good, bad and ugly.
MGW will always be a big miss for us, but i'd personally sooner he missed a home game, against Fulham, than away at Chelsea.
Could James Ward Prowse take his place, or will Nuno have another master plan up his sleeve. He is basically delaying the inevitable by appealing his ban, which will probably ending being two games, as he already has a one game suspension from the Everton debacle of last season.
Apart from MGW missing, i don't see there will be too many changes, though i would be tempted to play Miguel in place of Sels, if only as a kick up the backside.
We need to approach the game exactly as we did last season, 3-0 up by half time, then unfortunately we sat back, rather than going for the kill.
Fulham are an ok team, but i don't personally think they are as good as Brighton, a game we could potentially have won, even when down to 10 men, had the pass that put Sosa been played a bit sooner, he may well have won the game for us, he would have had a better angle to attack the goal and maybe gone for it, rather than trying to set up CHO.
looking forward to tomorrows game as i am back in the WF Trent End, after a couple of outings to the lower Bridgeford, still really good, but i like the Trent End.
I'm hopeful we can repeat the performance of last season, and with a little more clinical finishing, i fancy a repeat of last seasons scoreline, 3-1 to the mighty reds.

‘Chile, you say Fulham are decent; Dave you say they are ok. I think they are a good team with a very good manager. We are very much on a par with them. I think our bench might have the edge - just, even with key players missing today. And it could be the deciding factor.
Dominguez in the 10 role is a bit left field. I think Anderson gets it, with JWP alongside Yates.
Iwobi is a worry for me. Hopefully Aina has a better game than he did against Mitoma last week. Traore also a threat although perhaps past his best and quickest.

Nuno will be in the technical area today having been given more time to respond to the charges against him.

2-1 win today in another tight game.

I’d play JWP if we played three at the back, but I think he is a weak link defensively. Dominguez is just a bit more doggish.

I was also toying with Silva in the 10 role and Anderson and Yates in the middle. Tough decision, but will be interesting to see how we cope without MGW.

Both Awoniyi and Wood to start

Red, having just got back from the game, i stand by my assessment, Fulham are ok.
They are about on the same level that we are, which is progression for us, but standing still for them.
Today was one of the most uninspiring performances I’ve seen for a long time, by both teams.
Each cancelled the other out, and without them being given their penalty, they showed absolutely no ambition to score.
We had a really good shout for the foul on Elanga, but the ref decided it not worthy.
What concerns me is, the referee must have watched the monitor replay on at least a dozen occasions, for the Fulham penalty, to eventually decide to award the penalty, it was as if he was having to convince himself that his mate in VAR insist he change his decision.
He wasn’t even asked to view the monitor for our shout.
The rule should be, the ref can look at the decision one more time, at real time speed, and then assess. Surely a clear and obvious error is just that, not full scrutiny for such a long time.
Back to the game, neither team showed any ambition, Leno made one very comfortable save, Sels had nothing to do.
Strangely, it’s our home form that is letting us down, probably because Nuno just wants to play on the counter, and away teams are willing to just sit back and wait for a chance.
Nuno’s team selection was odd, playing both Wood and Taiwo, but with no wingers.
His subs were equally as baffling, especially trying to play Elanga on the inside rather than the wing.
All in all put it down to a bad day at the office.
Whilst my day has been pretty bad, i feel really sorry for the dozen or so people who struggled to park, and ended up on the local industrial estate, not impeding anyone, but got parking tickets.
We are aiming to add another 10,000 spectators to our crowd, where on Earth they going to park ??
Parking is difficult enough now, and unfortunately it’s only going to get worse.
Part of any expansion, should include such facilities as parking, but I’ll lay odds its not been given a second thought.

Dave, I’ll stick with Fulham being a good team. But yes we are both about the same level. I think both will finish 10th - 14th.
We have coped with the loss of Sangare and Danilo in the last few games but the loss of MGW as well was a bit too much for us today.
On top of that Nuno’s selection and set up were wrong. A 4-4-2 set up requires wingers. All our wingers were on the bench. Dominguez and Anderson are good players but didn’t look comfortable in their given roles. I’m not yet convinced by JWP, he looked ineffective today with a limited skill-set which he didn’t really make use of.
Nuno’s worst team selection since Niakhate at LB v Villa.
The back 4 did well although a bit deep at times, Murillo was once again a giant.
Next week I hope to see a version of the L’pool plan at Stamford bridge

Something has to be done about players dropping to the ground sobbing whenever their team loses the ball and wanting the ref to stop the game.
I’d suggest the ref only stops the game if he sees the player is obviously injured or the team’s manager asks the fourth official for a time out. Do not stop the game if the ball is kicked out. If the game is stopped the ‘injured’ player leaves the pitch for one minute.

Red, that is a great and valid point you make about the ref’s buying into players rolling round the ground for no reason.
If the ref stops the game for a player feigning injury, as happened plenty yesterday, the player leaves the pitch, this includes for ‘injuries’ such as cramp, for a minimum of 30 seconds, preferably a minute.