Nottingham Forest 1-1 Sheffield United: Djed Spence excels
Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United share the spoils to both stay mid-table in the Championship as Lewis Grabban cancels out Morgan Gibbs-White’s strike
- Nottingham Forest drew 1-1 with Sheffield United on Tuesday evening
- United talisman, Sharp, set up Gibbs-White to strike a hammer blow
- Then Forest striker Lewis Grabban finished off after a breakaway away
- New Forest boss Steve Cooper can be proud of the start he has made
Steve Cooper picked his words carefully but beneath the surface the Nottingham Forest boss was clearly seething after picking up the first booking of his career.
‘I don’t know,’ was his answer to the obvious question of why the yellow card.
Cooper was equally reticent to talk about the moment he thought his team had won a penalty when Chris Basham and Brennan Johnson clashed in the area, only for the Forest player to be booked.
New Forest manager Steve Cooper (above) can be rightly proud of the start he has made
Nottingham Forest (above) drew 1-1 with Sheffield United on Tuesday evening
But he did finally concede: ‘I’m not going to get into the decision because I’ll get myself into trouble. But we are going to stand up to be counted as a football club.
‘When things are going against us and people are being unfair to us, we’re not going to accept it and will be doing it off script officially behind the scenes.’
When he calms down, Cooper will look on this as a point gained after a mundane match ignited in the final 12 minutes.
United talisman Billy Sharp announced his arrival by setting up Morgan Gibbs-White for a smash-and-grab lead and then Forest sub Lewis Grabban scored a dramatic late equaliser.
Cooper can be rightly proud of the start he has made but there is devil in the detail.
Billy Sharp set up Morgan Gibbs-White (above) to score the first goal of the game
Then Forest striker Lewis Grabban (above) finished off after a breakaway attack to level it up
His only defeat was a 4-0 mauling by Fulham at the City Ground and flagged up a recurring issue of home form. Five losses in seven matches and a meagre six-goal haul before this match suggests there is room for improvement.
Sheffield United have been a conundrum. Amazingly they were looking to put together two consecutive away wins for the first time since December 2019.
They did not manage it and Slavisa Jokanovic bemoaned his team’s inability to hang on.
‘We score late and then we make an expensive mistake. We needed to be calm and just survive a few minutes. I came here for the win,’ Jokanovic said.
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