Nottingham Forest fans comments after the 4-3 defeat to Newcastle United – Interesting

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·25 de febrero de 2025

Nottingham Forest fans comments after the 4-3 defeat to Newcastle United – Interesting

Nottingham Forest fans watched on, as a very eventful match unfolded on Sunday.

The away side taking the lead with their first (and only?) attack of the first half.

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The Nottingham Forest fans seeing the goal living a charmed life until Lewis Miley opened the floodgates on 23 minutes.

It was 4-1 at half-time and could/should have been two or more in United’s favour.

After the break Newcastle sat back more and Forest had a bit of a go.

The game ending up 4-3 but clearly Newcastle United deservedly the winners, despite the visitors ‘winning’ the second half.

Nottingham Forest fans comment via their LTLF message board:

‘Let’s face it, Newcastle could have had 6 or 7 in that first half, they were all over us.

Can’t complain at the ref too much about it, we should have been better and we would’ve stopped em scoring.’

‘Just buy Isak in the summer. Break all records for him. The lad is tops.’

‘We can’t afford him and he wouldn’t come here anyway.’

‘Seeing the Newcastle lineup first before the match started I licked my lips as I thought their usual three man midfield was weak with Miley and Willock.’

‘It was a chance to put daylight between us and teams like Newcastle. But we’ve been basically ragdolled and we’ve made them contenders for the spot we are in.’

‘The 2nd half performance means nothing now. Newcastle knew the job was done.’

‘Didn’t deserve anything from the game over the course of the 90.

For all Newcastle’s ‘luck’ they made it happen because they were completely dominant and ripping us apart every time they went forward. On the 20 minute mark it felt like a matter of if not when, and when the first goal went in it felt like a case of how many now?

Don’t think Nuno set us up right. Said it before KO but in the reverse fixture they just targeted our full backs and refused to play in central areas which is where we launch pretty much all our counters from. The 4231 standard set up of ours completely played into their hands and they made short work of exposing it like they did earlier on in the season. Yeah so Aina had an absolute nightmare but he had Gordon, Hall and Willock all moving around him with zero support from Elanga and a trying-but-hopelessly-unsure-what-to-do Dominguez who had clearly been told to prioritise the central midfield shape even though, as we should have guessed, Newcastle didn’t play into it.’

‘Our problem first half was the passing, which was dreadful. Every time we got the ball we gave it straight back.’

‘I’d say we were harried into making mistakes.’

‘It’s hard to believe Lewis Hall has only just gone 20.’

‘Forest need to learn that they need to go toe to toe and stop showing so much respect to teams like Newcastle… this is a mentality issue, they’re man to man easily on par with Newcastle.’

‘To me it appears that we’ve got one proper top ten quality central midfielder in Anderson and a few more who need to step into that category.’

‘Even if Newcastle dropped their levels it showed that the boys were still able to raise themselves to go out and have a go. They may have settled for a 4-1 but they were not really settling for a 4-2 or a 4-3. If a team starts to settle they often find it difficult to raise themselves if things start to go against them. We have been on the other side of this in the past.’

‘Newcastle did to us what we did to Southampton. Went far ahead and then started coasting.’

‘Howe did a job on us in the first half – he knows that Elanga is poor tracking back and doubled up on Aina with Izak and Gordon – scored 3 goals from that move – Dominguez has to do more to support – I feel that Yates would have been the better choice in hindsight.’

‘Newcastle were sensational first half…although luck played a big part in their 4-1 lead.’

‘Very interesting analysis on MOTD2 last night which really helped me see our first half shambles in a new light.

And it made it clear to me that our game plan wasn’t bad, it was just their plan was better. It took until half time before our staff could get stuck in and change things, then we started to get into the game.

What made the first half worse was lucky deflections and VAR nonsense. Not trying to minimise Newcastle’s superiority in the first half, but their goals were all tinged with luck. How did Miley’s equalised get through all those legs, not only was the peno VAR-tinged, but the penanka was very lucky to drop in because of Sels reactions and the two other goals were deflected out of the ‘keepers reach.’

‘Awful first half yesterday, thats where the game was lost. What transpired in the second was too little, too late & largely down to Newcastle taking their foot off the gas.’

‘I’m biased, but by the current rules it’s “probably” handball, and let’s be honest, most fans are going to be asking for it to be given in their favour.

I do however think it can’t be a clear and obvious error by the ref when you’re looking at the replay for three minutes. When these types of things are retrospectively given against you, that’s what’s generally more annoying than the decision itself.

It should’ve been obvious whether it was handball or not after 30 seconds.’

‘I thought it was pretty obvious, to be honest. I was amazed the ref didn’t give it.’

‘Our midfield set up all wrong for the specific challenge, and sadly that is the second game against Newcastle this season after which I’ve said the same thing.’

‘Aina. I don’t think it’s physical, he just looks mentally frazzled. He couldn’t cope with the fact he was being doubled and even trebled up on at times. I can’t remember which goal it was, 2nd I think, but he just followed Gordon into midfield and allowed the much more dangerous run on his outside.

Obviously there is the question about where the support was, but he has to realise where the danger is too.

He should have been screaming at Elanga all game to cover Hall.’

‘That first half can’t be repeated and I trust the lads have enough about them the ensure that it won’t and we’ll instead see far more of the second half levels.’

‘I think Aina has been off it for a few weeks now. At more of a stretch I’d say Milenkovic has too. That air of invincibility has fallen away for both of them. They’ve run out of the legs to put in the levels they were able to before, in my eyes. We’ve become too extreme a caricature of ourselves – setting up to defend wildly for 80 mins and lumping it to Wood (who didn’t win a thing in the air yesterday and never does against their back line). We can’t sustain that defensive set up and as soon as we stop trying to we actually play much better.

I’d give Aina a rest myself. But the whole squad needs a plan for how we manage these next 12 games given the condition the squad is in. I feel like we’re trying to do the same thing we did in the first 26 better… and on current evidence I think we’ll wind up doing it much worse.’

‘At least we showed some desire in the second half, feel more confident we can get something from Wednesday night now.

Disappointing that it took us to be 4-1 down for us to show some attacking threat and interest.

Still can’t see how they gave it as a pen, I would be laughing my head off if we got that down the other end.’

‘Aina had a mare but to be fair to him pretty much every Newcastle attack was down their left hand side and he was often having to fend off two or three Newcastle players with zero help from anyone else’

‘Certain teams play a style that is counter-intuative and productive against our disruptive, counter-attack tactics. Newcastle, Bournemouth, Fulham, Arsenal and Manchester City either play a fast, more aggresive, attacking style or utilise the width to pass, playing the whole of the pitch. Yesterday was evident of the weakness of our system attacking in pairs to release the ball if Aina or Williams pressed, but without a defensive midfielder to assist the marking, the Newcastle players had options to cross unhindered or shift the ball inwards.’

Newcastle 4 Nottingham Forest 3 – Sunday 23 February 2025 2pm

(Stats via BBC Sport)

Newcastle United:

Miley 23, Murphy 25, Isak 33 pen, 34

Forest:

Hudson-Odoi 6, Milenkovic 63, Yates 90

Possession was Newcastle 57% Forest 43%

Total shots were Newcastle 13 Forest 17

Shots on target were Newcastle 5 Forest 5

Corners were Newcastle 7 Forest 6

Touches in the box Newcastle 34 Forest 26

(Match Report – This was huge – Newcastle 4 Nottingham Forest 3 – Read HERE)