Steve Cooper must have wondered what kind of reception he would receive from the travelling Nottingham Forest supporters but, unfortunately for the Leicester manager, it took a chastening defeat to their East Midlands rivals to find out. After Chris Wood feasted on some laughable Leicester defending to add his second and Forest’s third, the away fans returned to an old hit. “Stevie Cooper, Stevie Cooper, he hates the Leicester, he hates the Derby, Forest are magic,” filled the air as Leicester’s fans sat in silence. The reality is Forest should have made it 4-1 but the homegrown midfielder Ryan Yates, who opened the scoring, missed a sitter from four yards.
Only Erling Haaland has scored more league goals than Wood this season and the Forest striker’s first, with his back to goal, was a beauty. Since Nuno Espírito Santo’s first game in charge of Forest, only Haaland has scored more non-penalty goals than Wood. By the end, the away fans were singing about Europe, and Forest had climbed to fifth, for a few hours at least. Cooper allowed Forest, defeated once this season, to finally return to the biggest stage but Nuno is seemingly driving them to higher ground.
Nuno, serving the second of a three-match touchline ban, admired the joyous scenes in a corner of this stadium from the back of the press box but watched Wood’s first on a television in the away dressing room.
At the final whistle Anthony Elanga piggybacked Callum Hudson-Odoi, Ola Aina danced and Àlex Moreno punched the sky three times before the delighted Forest fans, just as Cooper once did. “To see our fans celebrate, they’ve given so much and to see them at the end of the match, this is what we play for,” the Forest head coach said. “They should be excited, they should enjoy it and it was a beautiful day for us as a club in this special game. Let’s not forget where we’ve come from, how hard it was, so now we must enjoy it.”
Cooper had been at pains to avoid discussing his time at Forest despite the obvious history. Even in his programme notes – aside from the customary welcome message for his successor, staff, players and visiting supporters – Cooper, who still lives in Keyworth, nine miles south of Nottingham, made no reference to his spell in charge. Regardless, Forest fans will always cherish how the Welshman brought the good times back to the City Ground. He ended Forest’s 23-year absence from the top flight after an unthinkable rise from the foot of the Championship to a playoff final win at Wembley inside nine months.
One of Cooper’s toughest days in charge of Forest came here that following season, a 4-0 defeat, and another looked on the cards for him when Yates opened the scoring after 16 minutes to register only his second league goal since April 2022. Yates punished a fluffed clearance by James Justin and caressed a first-time right-foot finish into the bottom corner. Cooper stood hands in pockets on the edge of the home technical area as Yates flew on to the turf on his knees, Elanga quick to join him. Then came Yates’s goggles celebration, a nod to the Forest fans’ ditty. “If Yatesy scores, we’re in the Trent,” they sing.
Leicester rallied and levelled seven minutes later courtesy of Jamie Vardy’s fourth goal of the season. Harry Winks whipped a brilliant cross towards the box, where an alert Vardy slinked between Nikola Milenkovic and Murillo to convert, another cold-blooded finish.
But Leicester struggled to build momentum and a couple of minutes later, at the other end, Mads Hermansen made a superb save to deny Nicolás Domínguez. Murillo toe-poked a shot goalwards from a corner, which deflected into the path of an unmarked Domínguez. The Forest midfielder leathered a shot at goal but the ball cannoned off the right shin pad of a sprawling Hermansen. The goalkeeper later made a couple of fine saves to thwart Elanga and Hudson-Odoi.
Leicester could hardly have started the second half worse, as Forest punished another error. Domínguez seized possession after Winks’s botched pass and when Elliot Anderson squared for Wood, only the Forest striker knew his next move. Wood spun Caleb Okoli, looked towards Elanga, to his right, and without even a glance at goal he buried the ball into the bottom corner, in off the base of Hermansen’s left post. A hungry Forest sensed blood and their third goal stemmed from another Leicester lapse.
Okoli looked to centre-back partner, Wout Faes, to deal with a routine kick downfield by Matz Sels and Faes merely headed the ball into the air, allowing a game Wood, who could barely believe his luck, to steal in and send a looping header over an exposed Hermansen. In the end Leicester got off lightly, Yates scooping over, the substitute Taiwo Awoniyi blasting against the side netting. The home crowd quickly emptied, the away end nothing of the sort.
“You don’t want to be losing any games, especially not to local rivals,” Cooper said. “We can’t shy away. It is important we don’t get too high or too low. How we recover from setbacks will end up defining how we do this year.”
