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Nottingham Forest 2-0 Sheffield Wednesday: Yuri Ribeiro and Lewis Grabban score to ensure hosts finally end their seven-match winless run while the Owls remain rooted to the bottom of the Championship
- Yuri Ribeiro got Nottingham Forest off to a strong start after just three minutes
- Lewis Grabban added a late second goal to seal an important three points
- The win ends Forest’s run of three straight defeats in the Championship
Famously, Tony Pulis has never been relegated. Although on recent evidence extending that record beyond next May would represent his greatest escapology act yet.
With a managerial career of 28 years spanning 11 clubs he has plenty of credit in the bank but the inauspicious start to his Hillsborough tenure has Sheffield braced for double doom when it comes to its clubs and the drop this season.
This result, inflicted by Yuri Ribeiro’s first goal for Nottingham Forest, leaves Sheffield Wednesday seven points from safety.
Yuri Ribeiro celebrates scoring Nottingham Forest’s opener against Sheffield Wednesday
Ribeiro struck for Forest after just three minutes in the first half with a fine left-footed finish
Eight winless games is not the kind of run Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri would have envisaged when he took decisive action and sacked Garry Monk at the start of November, immediately after the Yorkshire club had clambered off the bottom of the Championship.
‘The chairman asked me to come in and, after a month, give him a full assessment of the cub and everything else. So I’ll be doing that. It’s going to be a long season,’ said Pulis.
In Forest, they were facing the only team in worse form in the division, and one that had slipped to within goal difference of the relegation zone themselves, but could not reproduce the kind of performances previous Wednesday teams have at the City Ground.
Five of the previous six such fixtures had resulted in away wins, including a 4-0 romp a year and a day earlier.
Yet they went behind within three minutes in the meekest of manners as Forest worked the ball across the fringe of the area from a throw on the right, and Cafu guided into the path of former Benfica left back Ribeiro, who did not break stride in firing across Joe Wildsmith and into the bottom corner.
Pulis had his head in his hands as a defence shorn of long-term injury victim Dominic Iorfa was pulled out of shape.
Lewis Grabban celebrates with his team-mates after scoring Forest’s second goal late on
And he was thankful for another of their centre-backs in Dunkley keeping the half-time deficit to 1-0 in the 33rd minute clearance off the line after Taylor failed to make the cleanest contact with Ribeiro’s pull-back.
Arguably the most worrying aspect of the display, however, was the distinct lack of invention higher up the field.
Kadeem Harris wriggled free but drove too centrally from the edge of the area, which allowed Forest keeper Brice Samba to field comfortably low down while Josh Windass and Adam Reach both saw headed efforts go wide during the first half.
But the visitors did not have a single shot on target during a lethargic second period which culminated with Grabban celebrating his first appearance since late October with a mugging of Tom Lees in the area and composed finish beyond Wildsmith’s dive.
Tony Pulis cut a hugely frustrated figure in the dugout for Sheffield Wednesday
It was Grabban’s first goal since July but the challenge which preceded it left Pulis in a rage.
‘It was a disgrace. The referee (Steve Martin) was so close and that challenge could have broken the lad’s leg. People who see it will ask the same questions I am asking. Tom Lees had stud marks above his knee – not on his shin, above his knee.’
For his opposite number Chris Hughton, though, the return of one of the division’s leading strikers has come at an opportune juncture in the season.
‘Even if he hadn’t got the goal, it was still great to have him back involved and to have him in the changing room again. He’s a very well respected player here and I think it’s a big bonus for us,’ Hughton said.
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