Nottingham Forest’s first European adventure for almost 30 years was supposed to be a hoot but the mood music that accompanied a slender defeat in Braga felt rather alarming. The fact is Forest failed to perform and a stale display was typified by the chain of errors that culminated in the captain, Ryan Yates, scoring an own goal that proved sufficient to earn the hosts victory.
A swell of the 2,100 away fans who made the trip to northern Portugal relayed their feelings to Sean Dyche and his squad, jeering the players on several occasions. At full time the question on supporters’ lips was a slightly more direct version of: what on earth was that?
Things went from bad to worse on a disappointing evening when in stoppage time Elliot Anderson, part of a triple substitution midway through the second half, was given a straight red card for dissent. Forest fans were gravely unimpressed, though they had five shots on target and Braga none. The manner of the goal was painful if not comedic, Yates inadvertently diverting the ball past Matz Sels just 54 seconds after Morgan Gibbs-White saw his penalty saved by Lukas Hornicek.
Dyche was disappointed with that “minute of madness” but the reality is their entire performance was below par. After the relative high of holding Premier League leaders Arsenal to a draw at the City Ground last weekend, this marked a miserable low and it is now one win for Forest across their past eight matches in all competitions.
Forest fans made their voices heard. “Yeah, of course, they’re frustrated,” Dyche said. “They want to do well in this competition. We want to do well in it. This is a great competition that the club has waited a long time to get into. Of course, I understand their frustration. There is a lot of expectation this season, I know because I lived in the area before I was manager, despite two managers and all the different players. They are still frustrated. It’s going to take time because we haven’t got magic dust.”
Kick-off at this striking stadium, carved out of a rock at the site of a former quarry with two lateral stands, felt a landmark achievement in itself given the biblical rainstorms in the hours before the game. But the pre-match excitement soon subsided. Forest made seven changes and the discernible weakness was in attack.
Igor Jesus did not travel to Portugal after picking up a hip problem, leaving Forest without an orthodox striker after allowing Arnaud Kalimuendo to depart on loan for Eintracht Frankfurt, while Chris Wood is sidelined after knee surgery and Taiwo Awoniyi ineligible. So it was down to Dan Ndoye, a winger, to spearhead Forest’s attack and their lack of cutting edge was painfully apparent throughout. They are pushing through a move for the Napoli forward Lorenzo Lucca, who flew into England on Thursday to finalise a loan switch. Forest require a lift, and quickly.
The visitors struggled to create chances but five minutes into the second half James McAtee, one of those given another chance, went down in the box under pressure from Gabri Martínez and the Croatian referee, Igor Pajac, awarded a penalty. There was a lengthy video assistant referee check and almost three minutes had passed by the time Gibbs-White stepped up to take the spot-kick. His right-foot penalty lacked conviction and Hornicek dived low to his left to push the ball away from his goal with his left hand.
Gibbs-White grimaced, Hornicek beamed. Braga flew forward on the counterattack and less than a minute later the ball was in the back of the Forest goal. Yates wore a look of disbelief after steering Ricardo Horta’s squared ball past Sels, the midfielder skidding into the netting as the ball bobbled into the net in slow motion.
Just after the hour Ola Aina, who started at left-back with Nicolò Savona on the opposite flank, rattled the crossbar with a speculative, swerving effort from 30 yards but that in itself spoke volumes. Forest lacked invention and quickly tired of ideas. Worse still, they looked susceptible to conceding again. The Braga substitute Pau Víctor sent an effort against the inside of a post. Yates sent a header goalwards after Hornicek denied Ndoye from a tight angle, but it was all too little too late.
