There was no festive cheer for Forest today as their poor away form saw them go down 2-0 to bottom of the league Sheffield Wednesday.
Forest did start the game well and had the lion’s share of possession for the first ten minutes, with the first real chance of the game falling to Harewood who forced a good save from Kevin Pressman.
After this period Sheffield Wednesday picked up the pace. They hustled and harried Forest, never letting them settle on the ball.
Sibon missed the best chance for the Owls as he split the Forest defence and found himself one-on-one with Ward, but he dragged his shot wide.
Wednesday were now starting to control the game and Forest were giving the ball away far too easily in the midfield. Further chances fell to Sibon, Johnston, and Proudlock, who with all the time in the world still managed to blast his shot over the bar.
During this period of pressure from Wednesday, Forest did manage one or two excursions into the Wednesday half, but a good challenge from Monk to deny Harewood a shot, and a very weak effort from Jack Lester were the best they could do.
The breakthrough for the Owls came on the stroke of half time as Haslam fired in his free kick, Sibon – who had been a thorn in the side of Forest’s defence throughout the half – rose and headed the ball down past Ward and into the net.
Wednesday had to substitute Kevin Pressman at half time and Stringer came on in his place. Forest started the second half well and applied pressure to the new ‘keeper, with Johnson shooting just wide and Brennan missing from a tight angle. It didn’t last too long though and on 54 minutes the Owls doubled their lead.
Hamshaw fired in a cross and it was Johnston who got the final touch before it went in, though I’m not sure how much he really knew about it as it seemed to bounce off him.
Wednesday were not playing like a team rooted to the foot of the table and they were making Forest look second best all the way through this game. They almost got a third when Sibon laid off Quinn’s corner to Haslam, his shot taking paint off the crossbar as it sailed over.
With fifteen minutes to go a large number of Forest’s travelling support started to drift out, hoping to forget this Boxing Day. Let’s hope there’s an improvement for Pompey’s visit on Saturday.
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