YELLOW CARDpublished at 69 mins
Nottingham Forest 1-0 Crystal Palace
Huh? Very strange this as Nicolas Dominguez needlessly kicks the ball away when his side have a free-kick.
Yellow card.
Dean Henderson's mistake piled more misery on winless Crystal Palace as Chris Wood sealed victory for Nottingham Forest in the Premier League.
The Palace goalkeeper, in front of watching interim England manager Lee Carsley, allowed Wood's second-half strike to squirm under his arm.
Oliver Glasner's Eagles remain in the Premier League's bottom three, while Forest rise to eighth after their first home win of the season.
Eberechi Eze and Eddie Nketiah hit the woodwork for Palace, while Ryan Yates also nodded on to a post for the hosts.
Palace enjoyed the better of a bright opening and Eze went close before Nketiah's fine 30-yard effort clipped the upright, but after a slow start Forest roused themselves and Elliott Anderson's excellent run and shot forced Henderson into action.
Wood headed over before being denied by Jefferson Lerma on the line as Forest continued to create chances, and Yates' header came back off the post after 22 minutes.
Forest manager Nuno Espirito Santo - watching from the stands as he starts a three-game touchline ban - would have been encouraged, but Palace regrouped and Matz Sels turned Eze's drive on to the bar after the break.
But Wood struck with 25 minutes left when he seized on Trevoh Chalobah's clearance and his first-time effort from 20 yards crept under Henderson's arm.
Sels then ensured Forest took all three points with another fine save, this time denying Jeffrey Schlupp with 10 minutes left.
Nottingham Forest's search for a striker took them to several targets in the summer, but they know they can rely on Chris Wood.
Nketiah, PSV's Santiago Gimenez and Porto's Galeno were all wanted, but Wood is Forest's go-to man.
The forward became just the third player to score 20 or more goals for Forest in the Premier League with his winner, behind Bryan Roy and Stan Collymore.
He could have scored earlier in the game but persistence paid off, and few will blame him for those failures now the points are secured.
It was his fifth league goal of the season and shows why he is integral to Forest under Nuno.
Before the Portuguese manager arrived Wood scored just six league goals in a season and a half, before netting four in Nuno's first two games, including a hat-trick in the win at Newcastle last December.
Another seven followed, and the New Zealand forward has hit the ground running this season, just when Forest needed him to after missing out on adding their strikeforce.
Crystal Palace ended last season with six wins from their final seven games and their immediate future looked bright.
They had a joint-highest points tally in the Premier League, and a new manager who had won the Europa League two years previously.
Now, after defeat at the City Ground, they are on their longest winless start to a season in 31 years.
Manager Glasner has already said the first goal is not to get relegated and, as it stands, it should be the only one.
They are the lowest scorers in the division with five, and need Nketiah to find his feet.
Forest wanted Nketiah in the summer but he faded after his early strike hit the post and is not a like-for-like replacement for Michael Olise – such a loss after he joined Bayern Munich in the summer - who had a brilliant understanding with Eze.
Yet after paying about £30m to sign him from Arsenal the striker needs goals.
After the opportunity to rate players has closed, the score displayed represents the average from all the submissions by BBC Sport users.
Position | Team | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Goals For | Goals Against | Goal Difference | Points | Form, Last 6 games, Oldest first |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 8 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 15 | 3 | 12 | 21 |
| |
2 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 19 | 9 | 10 | 20 |
| |
3 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 15 | 8 | 7 | 17 |
| |
4 | 8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 15 | 10 | 5 | 17 |
| |
5 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 14 | 10 | 4 | 15 |
| |
6 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 17 | 10 | 7 | 14 |
| |
7 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 18 | 9 | 9 | 13 |
| |
8 | 8 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 13 |
| |
9 | 8 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 | 8 | 0 | 12 |
| |
10 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 11 | 11 | 0 | 11 |
| |
11 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 10 | 10 | 0 | 11 |
| |
12 | 8 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 9 | -2 | 11 |
| |
13 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 14 | 15 | -1 | 10 |
| |
14 | 8 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 12 | 14 | -2 | 9 |
| |
15 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 11 | 15 | -4 | 8 |
| |
16 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 9 | 15 | -6 | 8 |
| |
17 | 8 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 16 | -10 | 4 |
| |
18 | 8 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 11 | -6 | 3 |
| |
19 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 6 | 18 | -12 | 1 |
| |
20 | 8 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 10 | 23 | -13 | 1 |
|
Manager: Rui Pedro Silva
Formation: 4 - 2 - 3 - 1
Manager: Oliver Glasner
Formation: 3 - 1 - 4 - 2
Manager: Rui Pedro Silva
Formation: 4 - 2 - 3 - 1
Manager: Oliver Glasner
Formation: 3 - 1 - 4 - 2
Premier League
All competitions
All competitions
All competitions
Nottingham Forest are unbeaten in their last seven league games against Crystal Palace (W2 D5). However, five of the last six have been draws, including each of the last three in a row.
Crystal Palace are winless in their last 10 top-flight meetings with Nottingham Forest (D6 L4), since a 1-0 away win in February 1991.
Nottingham Forest have never lost in eight Premier League meetings with Crystal Palace (W3 D5). It’s both the most they’ve faced a side without losing and the most the Eagles have faced a side without winning in the competition.
In all competitions, Nottingham Forest are winless in seven games at the City Ground (D4 L3). It’s their longest run without a home win since October 2020 (also 7), while they last went longer in February 2012 (8), a run which included a 0-1 defeat to Crystal Palace in the Championship.
Crystal Palace have drawn three and lost four of their seven Premier League games this season; not since 1992-93 have the Eagles failed to win any of their opening eight league matches of a campaign.
In the Premier League this season, no side has recorded fewer total pressures in the final third (233), fewer high turnovers (32), or has a higher passes per defensive action (PPDA) average (15.3) than Nottingham Forest.
Crystal Palace have lost both of their last two Premier League games, last losing three in a row in the competition in March 2023 (run of 4).
Only Diogo Dalot (48) and Iliman Ndiaye (47) have won possession more times in the Premier League this season than Adam Wharton (46). Meanwhile, the midfielder has been involved in 15 build-up sequences ending in a shot in the competition this term, the most of any Crystal Palace player.
Chris Wood has scored six of Nottingham Forest’s last nine Premier League goals, and has 19 goals for them overall in the division. He is looking to become the third player to score 20+ for the Tricky Trees in the competition, after Bryan Roy (24) and Stan Collymore (22).
Only Erling Haaland (35) and Antoine Semenyo (31) have had more shots in the Premier League this season than Eberechi Eze (27). However, Eze has just one goal (a shot conversion rate of 3.7%), while only Bruno Fernandes (-1.9) is underperforming his expected goals more than the Crystal Palace man in the competition this term (-1.5, 1 goal from 2.5 xG).