Nottingham Forest vs Manchester United
‘Que Sera Sera, whatever will be will be, we’re going to Wembley, Que Sera Sera.’
That’s what was being belted out at the City Ground as we approached kick off on Tuesday night. The buzz around the fanbase could be felt, an already outstanding season reached new heights after an international break that felt like it lasted an eternity finally drew to close and Forest beat Brighton & Hove Albion in a penalty shoot out at the Amex on Saturday to reach our first FA Cup semi final since 1991. Every office, bar, cafe and school in Nottingham this week was filled with talk of Wembley, ‘are you going?’, ‘will you be able to sort me out a ticket?’, ‘we could actually do it you know!’ Away from the cup though, Forest still have their quest to qualify for the Champions League to focus on, with nine massive cup finals of their own still to play out. The next challenge that awaited was a visit from Manchester United.
When you hear ‘Manchester United’, it is difficult not to think of what once was. Growing up in the noughties Manchester United were the team. Every man and his dog seemed to follow them and in that era they were of course a winning machine under Sir Alex Ferguson. The current Manchester United team however is a far cry from that and this season’s Premier League campaign has been woeful for them, Ruben Amorim’s record since joining the red devils leaves a lot to be desired, with nine wins, three draws and nine losses in 21 games so far meaning that he has the lowest win percentage (43%) of any permanent Manchester United manager since Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2013. Despite that, the fans in the away end at the City Ground were firmly backing him by singing his name all evening, with the view amongst the hardcore section of United supporters being that he needs a lot of time to attempt to turn them around after all the turmoil that the club has faced.
Forest and United spent 23 years apart due to our absence from the Premier League. Some Forest fans will remember Stan Collymore and Stuart Pearce scoring at Old Trafford in 1994 to seal a 2-1 win for for the reds. Following that famous win, Forest’s record against United is ugly. They drew the next meeting at the City Ground 1-1 in 1995, before ten straight United victories spanning from 1996-2023. If you actually add up all of the goals from those ten results, it produces an aggregate score of 37-4 to United which just highlights the total dominance that they have held over Forest throughout most of modern history. In the last three fixtures before this one though, the tables have turned slightly and Forest have enjoyed two wins, one at the City Ground last season where Morgan Gibbs-White scored a memorable winner, and a 3-2 victory at Old Trafford earlier this season.
After being born and raised in Sweden, Anthony Elanga’s family made the decision to move to Manchester, England when he was a child. In 2014 at the age of 12, Elanga signed for Manchester United and spent seven years rising through the youth ranks at Carrington to eventually make his competitive debut for the senior team in 2021 on 11th May against Leicester City at the back end of the 2020/21 season. Elanga was always a highly rated young prospect and United fans had high hopes for him, he made 14 starts in the 2021/22 Premier League season and came off the bench in a further 7 games. He managed 2 goals in that season and also scored a crucial equaliser against Atletico Madrid in a Champions League round of 16 first leg.
It was interim manager Ralf Rangnick who saw something special in Elanga and gave him the minutes he needed to begin his development as a Premier League footballer. Rangnick’s successor Erik Ten Haag didn’t place as much trust in Elanga however, and he only made 5 starts in the following season, with 11 substitute appearances and only 1 goal involvement. It was ultimately decided by the hierarchy of the club that he was not up to the standard of Manchester United and was therefore sold to Forest in the summer of 2023 for £15 million. Still only 21 at the time, Forest knew that they had signed a player with huge potential.
As he ran through the United defence on Tuesday night, onlookers in the away end would have all been thinking the same thing, ‘why on earth did we let him go.’ It’s this kind of short sightedness that has proved to be so damaging for Manchester United and has been so frustrating for their fanbase, selling young talents instead of giving them the time to develop alongside spending extraordinary sums of money on players that have massively dissapointed.
Forest fans are used to seeing Elanga drive at pace with the ball, but it usually ends up with him feeding another attacker. This time though he didn’t stop, he picked the ball up deep in his own half after a Yates headed clearance set him free and he went on to cover 85 metres in just nine seconds! He shrugged Alejandro Garnacho to the floor with ease and calmy slotted his finish past Andre Onana in goal. The City Ground went ballistic, another devastating transition, another game where Forest take the lead. It’s been a familiar recipe for success this season.
After the early goal I got the feeling that it could be the spark for us to score more and really put Ruben Amorim’s team to the sword. It wasn’t to be that way though and what followed was a performance personified by Ryan Yates in terms of his absolute determination to get into Bruno Fernandes’ head. He stifled and frustrated the talismanic midfielder and thus didn’t allow him to dictate the tempo of the game. Yates’ is a ‘spoiler’ and his ability to win free kicks is the worst kept secret in Nottingham, he won 4 of them on Tuesday night to further frustrate the United players and supporters in the ground. After playing through 120 gruelling minutes and going to penalties against Brighton on Saturday, Forest looked mentally and physically exhausted the longer that this game went on. An injury to Ola Aina after 40 minutes was probably a result of that and didn’t help matters, but Yates’ spirited determination to see the game out spread throughout the whole team who produced a strong defensive team effort to pull themselves over the line.
The final moments of the game produced real drama, as Harry Maguire who was surprisingly brought on as a makeshift striker, latched onto the end of a cross from Mazraoui to poke the ball towards goal, with Sels beaten the City Ground held it’s collective breath anticipating a late sucker punch from the away side. However, Forest have the most goal line clearances in the league this season and Murillo, so often the savour, was there once again to be the hero and clear the ball into the safety of the lower Brian Clough stand. We celebrated like we’d just scored a last minute winner, and celebrated even more when the full time whistle came just seconds later after Christian Eriksen shanked a cross out of play.
1-0 has become a familiar scoreline for Forest this season, we are a team that pride ourselves on getting infront and keeping the opposition at bay. The win also signifies Forest’s first league double against Manchester United since Brian Clough’s team did it in the 1991/92 season. The tide has turned.
Since our game ended, all of the other Premier League teams have played and every team in the top 7 won, meaning that it’s ‘as you were’ before the start of game week 30. What it does mean though for the Champions League picture is that we have ticked off another game week as we edge closer to the climax. Forest remain 7 points ahead of Newcastle in 6th place although they do have a game in hand. Forest have a tough trip to Aston Villa up next which has been made even harder by the injury to Ola Aina. Alex Moreno replaced Aina after he came off but he is also unable to play at Villa Park due to the opposition being his parent club.
The selection headache leaves Nuno with a number of options on how he could line up defensively:
The ‘safe’ option: RB Williams, RCB Milenkovic, LCB Murillo, LB Toffolo
The ‘play your best 4 defenders’ option: RB Williams, RCB Milenkovic, LCB Murillo, LB Morato
The ‘contain’ option: RWB Williams, RCB Milenkovic, CB Murillo, LCB Morato, LWB Toffolo
The ‘wildcard’ option: RWB Williams, RCB Milenkovic, CB Murillo, LCB Morato, LWB Hudson-Odoi
Whichever way Nuno chooses to go with it, the characteristics that Forest showed to claw over the line against Manchester United will be required once more if Forest are to get anything from the game. In our predictions that we made in our last blog post, 3/4 of us went for an Aston Villa win. If we did end up losing it wouldn’t be the end of the world as we’ve built a nice cushion thanks to our recent wins, and have ‘easier’ looking games to come over the following 7 game weeks. I think it is widely agreed amongst the fanbase that a draw would resemble an excellent result, and Aston Villa’s heavy fixture schedule could have an impact on the line up that they put out with a Champions League quarter final against PSG on the horizon.
Written by Joe Horne
