At this fixture’s peak in the late 1970s, Nottingham Forest and Liverpool played 13 times in the space of three seasons. By contrast, Sunday’s reunion was the first meeting in 23 years, and it has been even longer since this was considered the biggest game in English football’s calendar. Plenty has changed in that time, for one club more than the other, but none of the old intensity was lost at the City Ground.
A breathless FA Cup quarter-final was enriched by the friendly but keenly felt rivalry, renewed in a very different football landscape when compared to its origins. Forest lived up to the occasion. Had they frustrated Liverpool to the point of forcing extra time, as seemed likely until Diogo Jota’s late winner, Jurgen Klopp and his players could have had few complaints.
