Nottingham Forest attacking midfielder Jesse Lingard's mistake in the lead-up to James Maddison's opener for Leicester City in Monday night's East Midlands derby has been described as 'the start of the end' fof the Reds' chances of getting a result against their East Midlands rivals.
The 29-year-old was culpable for a miscued clearance which fell to the feet of Maddison on the edge of the penalty area, who took a touch to control before getting off a shot that deflected off of Scott McKenna and past Dean Henderson in the Forest goal. Within two minutes Harvey Barnes had bent a second into the opposite corner, and Maddison was back to complete the 10-minute salvo with a whipped free-kick into that same side of the goal.
Those three strikes effectively ended the match as a contest well before Patson Daka flicked in a fourth. Lingard's old West Ham United assistant manager and former Notts County boss Kevin Nolan believes that the 'start of the end' can be traced back to the 32-cap England international.
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“Jesse is going to be disappointed because a man of his talent and quality should be clearing that,” Nolan said during Premier League Productions' coverage of the match (via HITC ). “His quality is there for all to see, but that’s where the ball (Lingard’s attempted clearance) should end up (towards the halfway line). But two seconds later, it’s in the back of the Forest net, and that was the start of the end for Forest.”
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