Report
Forest took on Yeading, the League Champions and beat them 3-1 in this thoroughly entertaining and enthralling match which had little of an end of season feel about it.
Yeading, resting some key players would still have been favourites to win this game but, as happened at the same time last year, they met a determined an thoughtful Forest side who wanted those three points.
The home side signalled their intent right from the outset when Warren Ryan sped into the heart of Ding’s defence and unleashed a ferocious shot from the inside left position some 25 yards out from goal: he was only inches wide of the mark.
Two minutes later the visitors’ defence were all at sea after Arif Yozcu swung in a corner from the left side. The ball pinged around the defence before going off for another corner.
Yeading’s first attack came after five minutes and was a beautiful three man passing move creating attack out of defence with Michael Barima on the overlap but his cross was a poor one.
For the next ten minutes, Forest took control of the match and kept Yeading in their own half of the field without really penetrating their defence incisively enough to cause trouble. Then on twenty minutes Forest won a corner which Bastian sent into the danger area. Again Yeading could not clear the ball which was kicked from their goal line twice.
Forest continued to press and were rewarded with five minutes left of the half when Yozcu won the ball just outside the Ding’s penalty area. He made space before shooting but ‘keeper Luke Blackmore seemed to be equal to it until he let the ball spill and Dave Bastian was on hand to shoot home.
Yeading seemed a different side when they came out for the second half and forced Forest to defend in numbers. Gavin King, in the home goal made a series of excellent and brave saves but could do nothing when the home defence stood appealing for the off side flag whilst Errol Telemanqe came through on the left of the six yard box and shot home from close range.
The game ebbed and flowed but it always seemed that Forest were on top. Within twelve minutes it came to pass. Yozcu, who’d been looking for that telling pass all night, won the ball ten yards inside the Yeading half and sent a precise cutting ball out to the right wing for Dewayne Clarke to run on to. He made no mistake in slotting home low and hard into the net.
The end point for Yeading came when defender Nevin Saroya was sent off for his second cautionable offence taking Yozcu down with a needlessly dreadful foul. When the game restarted, Yeading were not able to plug the gap and Joe Nartey, on for the injured Clarke, ran through and scored from exactly the same position as Clarke had done earlier.
An all round excellent fighting performance after the disappointment of Saturday.