CITY GROUND — A second successive draw for Liverpool proved less costly than it might. This was a game they will feel they should have won but could easily have lost. In the end the failure of Chelsea and Manchester City to capitalise removed all jeopardy from the evening.
Forest are not easily subdued. For all their possession and second-half threat Liverpool trailed for more than an hour. Mohamed Salah, so often the difference, was again subdued, suggesting the contract dispute might be weighing more heavily the longer it drags on.
Liverpool required a set-piece to better the remarkable Matz Sels in the Forest goal, a mundane header from Diogo Jota cancelling Chris Wood’s surgical early strike. It is for Arsenal to make the most of Liverpool’s slip with victory in the north London derby but their own struggles in front of goal point to another anxious evening at the Emirates.
Premier League results
After a lightning break in the seventh minute to take the lead with the kind of move that has become their signature, Forest showed immense character to keep Liverpool blank. Arne Slot was full of credit for Forest, and praise for his own team in limiting them to one counter punch.
Just listen to that roar
Chris Wood opens the scoring for Nottingham Forest through a perfectly executed break
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Liverpool increased the intensity after the break but found Forest resolute in defence and between the sticks a goalkeeper in Sels with spidey senses fully engaged. Slot acknowledged the quality of the opponent. “It is no surprise after 20 games that they are second in the league. I see no reason for them to drop a lot of points. They are very difficult to play against.”
Fired by an early goal and a fierce sense of purpose, Forest harried and blocked Liverpool to the point of oblivion. And when Liverpool brought themselves level, Forest found even greater strength to maintain parity. A draw was absolutely the least they deserved for their refusal to buckle.
The defensive effort in the last 30 minutes to somehow keep Liverpool out was greeted with its own serenade by a crowd glorying in this season’s elevation and the connection with their team.
Theirs was a brilliant demonstration of the defensive arts. The point about Forest is they are designed to function like a spring, absorbing the opponent’s possession. But that should not be viewed as inferiority. It is by design, with the added quality of dulling the defensive instincts of the opponent.
Liverpool were all swagger here. Forest stayed calm then, at the first opportunity, unleashed the scalpel and sliced them open. Callum Hudson-Odoi to Anthony Elanga to Chris Wood, goal. It was that surgical. Quick and clean, leaving Liverpool wondering what hit them.
The City Ground, already crackling with nervous energy, detonated like it was 1978, when these two teams first went at it in a genuine title duel. This is what they came for, a goal up against the Premier League’s marquee team, and achieved just as they knew it would be, by ambush.
For all their pedigree, Liverpool did not make much of it where it matters. Shots were either speculative or snatched. The one gaping hole they opened in the first half via a Trent Alexander-Arnold pass so good it might have been delivered by drone was butchered by an indecisive Luis Diaz.
Too much time is not always your friend in this game, and the ball to the rapidly advancing Cody Gakpo never found him, allowing Forest to make it to the break justifiably intact. Could they hang on?
The definition of instant impact
Diogo Jota scores with his first touch of the game just 25 seconds after being subbed on
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) January 14, 2025
Forest were not the only ones invested in that possibility, of course. Liverpool being sucked back into the pack was in the interests of all outside Anfield. This was always going to be a test for Liverpool, faced by a team tightly bound and free of conceit.
The pace and connectivity of Hudson-Odoi, Elanga and Morgan Gibbs-White draws the eye but equally significant is the more yeoman qualities of Elliot Anderson and Ryan Yates in the middle of the park and the indomitable Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic who patrol the box like a pair of peak Mike Tysons. Ain’t no sapiens getting past them.
There was still an expectancy about Liverpool that this match would turn in their favour. We are Liverpool, right? It felt like a little more humility might serve them better. Forest seemed to feed off this dynamic, the desire to prick the Liverpool hauteur a galvanising factor on the pitch and in the stands.
Credit to Slot, he read the room expertly, sending on Jota and Kostas Tsimikas for Ibrahima Konate and Andy Robertson just past the hour. Change was needed and the impact was immediate. Tsimikas with his first touch provided the assist from a corner, and Jota with his headed home.
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