Nottingham Forest soar back into third with win at wasteful Tottenham
Tottenham 1-2 Nottingham Forest: Visitors climb back into Champions League spots as they condemn Spurs to a record eighth home loss this season
Chris Wood’s 19th goal of the season fired Nottingham Forest back up to third in the Premier League with a 2-1 win at Tottenham.
Forest had slipped to sixth after the weekend’s results, but Nuno Espirito Santo savoured a sweet three points against old club Spurs after early goals from Elliot Anderson and Wood in the capital.
It brought Ange Postecoglou’s team back down to earth after Thursday’s victory at Eintracht Frankfurt had sent them through to the Europa League semi-finals and, despite a late Richarlison header, they remain 16th.
This was Nuno’s second return to Spurs since his ill-fated 17-match tenure in 2021, but this time his team had Champions League ambitions after a superb campaign.
Morgan Gibbs-White almost fired Forest ahead inside four minutes, only for Guglielmo Vicario to parry his 25-yard curler wide, yet it was a sign of things to come.
Nuno was able to celebrate the opener from the resulting corner as Tottenham failed to deal with Anthony Elanga’s delivery and the ball dropped for Anderson, who had a low effort deflected in off Rodrigo Bentancur.
Vicario might have done better and five minutes later he had to pick the ball out of his net again, but Wood’s tap-in was ruled out for offside.
It was short-lived respite for Spurs as Forest made it 2-0 after 17 minutes through Wood. Tottenham switched off from a short free kick and Elanga again made the difference with a superb cross for Wood to head in.
Postecoglou’s side regrouped, with Wilson Odobert able to test Matz Sels for the first time before Mathys Tel and Dejan Kulusevski had efforts.
Spurs’ stand-in captain Cristian Romero was fortunate to escape punishment for a strong challenge on Anderson midway through the half before the hosts missed two gilt-edged opportunities to reduce the deficit.
First Neco Williams made a mess of Pedro Porro’s 41st-minute cross and Tel blazed wide from 10 yards with the goal at his mercy before Richarlison headed wide from a brilliant Odobert delivery.
It meant it remained 2-0 at half-time where boos followed before both head coaches made changes as Forest switched to a back three.
The visitors could have put the game to bed after 55 minutes when Wood played in Gibbs-White, but he sent his half-volley wide.
Spurs almost pulled one back when Kulusevski flicked Porro’s corner over Sels, but Harry Toffolo was on hand to produce a brilliant clearance on the line.
Williams gifted Tottenham another chance when his clearance hit team-mate Ryan Yates and went into the path of Richarlison, who was denied by a point-blank save from Sels.
Dominic Solanke and Brennan Johnson were introduced with 23 minutes left and Sels produced another big moment to stop a Richarlison header in the 80th minute.
Richarlison did eventually get his goal as another sumptuous Porro cross picked out the Brazilian, who steered his header into the bottom corner.
It set up a grandstand finish, but Forest survived to boost their Champions League prospects and condemn Spurs to an eighth home loss of the season, their worst total in the top flight in the 38-game format.