Nottingham Forest 1-0 Blackburn Rovers: Alex Mighten earns Forest victory
- Published
Alex Mighten's first-half goal was just his second for Forest
Brice Samba made a superb penalty save from Blackburn's Adam Armstrong to ensure Alex Mighten's first-half strike was enough to earn Nottingham Forest victory at the City Ground.
Forest led when Mighten was quick to react following a free-kick and hit a deflected shot which looped into the net from the edge of the box for his second career goal.
A Rovers side who had lost their previous three league games responded impressively and Armstrong crashed a shot against the post after some nifty footwork on the edge of the box.
But the Reds, who are now seven points clear of the relegation zone, kept Rovers at bay after the break until Samba had to make amends for his own error by diving to his right to push away Armstrong's spot-kick.
Samba came racing from his goal to try to collect a poor Anthony Knockaert header but was beaten to the ball by Ryan Nyambe and could only bring down the Rovers defender.
However, Armstrong's penalty was well anticipated by Samba, whose full-length dive denied Blackburn a point and means they are now 12th in the table, five places and three points above the Reds - albeit having played a game less.
Forest were otherwise largely untroubled defensively despite the visitors having more of the ball and were close to going 2-0 up when a Cyrus Christie strike was turned onto the post by keeper Thomas Kaminski.
Winger Knockaert had also nearly scored in the first half when, after swapping passes with Glenn Murray and jinking past two defenders, Nyambe cleared his strike off the line - while James Garner and Murray also nearly broke the deadlock.
The home side's failure to add to their goal tally did not prove costly though as, a minute after Christie struck the post, Samba's spot-kick heroics secured a third win in six league matches for Chris Hughton's side.
Nottingham Forest boss Chris Hughton told BBC Radio Nottingham: "We are on the back of our best performance of the season at Swansea where we lost and on the balance of play I can't say we deserved to win. But on chances we certainly did. We had four really good chances.
"The positives are it's another clean sheet against a very, very good footballing side. But we can play better.
"We had a good spell before the goal but once we scored we allowed Blackburn to have too much possession because we didn't keep it well enough.
"But there is character in the squad and the work ethic is good. The players know they weren't at their best but they also know how important the three points are."
Blackburn Rovers manager Tony Mowbray: "It was more like the way we want to play after a frustrating last few games.
"We looked like the team we've been for most of the season and we feel a bit hard done by not getting anything from the game. It just seems to be the way it's going for us at the moment.
"We needed to raise the levels after the last few games and I felt we did that. It was similar to the QPR game when we were also pretty dominant and yet lost 1-0.
"But I've told the players we will win football matches with those sort of performance levels. We have to play with that urgency and with a front-foot attitude. We had the chance with the penalty kick and I felt we'd have gone on to win it if we'd have scored."