Forest lost three points this evening as Leicester ran out 1-0 winners in the final East Midlands derby of the season.
It was a huge contrast to Saturday’s exciting 4-3 win at Ipswich, when both teams played good football and went out to win the game AND entertain the fans. This evening’s game couldn’t have been more different.
Forest started brightly and had Leicester worried for the first fifteen minutes as they ran at them, playing attractive football. Leicester on the other hand had a game plan; entertaining football was not on the menu. They put 11 men behind ball and lumped it up field at every opportunity.
It was not pretty, it was not nice to watch, but I do concede, it was very effective. To be honest though, if I was a Leicester fan, having to watch this week after week I would be worried – and suicidal. Effective it may have been, and they certainly ground out the result. Nevertheless, with promotion looking certain (they need only three points to guarantee it) the only thing this style of football will get them in the Premiership is instant relegation.
Forest on the other hand, despite trying to play with style and finesse, struggled to make any real impact on the 11 man defence.
The goal came in the 37th minute as Darren Ward parried Jordan Stewart’s low shot. Unfortunately, the ball fell to Tommy Wright, only three yards out and he knocked the ball into the net.
After this Leicester shut up shop, with 11 defenders the game became a stalemate. The Leicester defence strangled service to the Forest strikers and chances were few and far between.
Forest did play well, and most feel they deserved at least a point out of this game, but there was no way through for them.
The loss doesn’t really help Forest, but it hasn’t done any real harm either. The one thing we can look forward to now is a good entertaining game against Wolves on Friday – after all, I don’t think they (or anyone else for that matter) will be as negative as Leicester were this evening.
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