Forest Cruise To 3-0 Win

The final home game of the season for Nottingham Forest, was a rather predictable walk in the park, as they swept aside an already relegated Plymouth Argyle who were content to play some neat and tidy football, but not upset the party atmosphere at fortress City Ground.

The match had the feel of a pre season friendly about it, with both teams going through the motions, without taking too much out of themselves. For Forest of course, there’s the serious business of the Playoffs to think about and for poor old Plymouth, they’ll be glad for their season to end, having just been relegated to League 1 in mid week. If any evidence was needed of how important this game was to both clubs, it was in the disappointing attendance of 22,000, of which only 461 were from Plymouth.

Forest dominated the first half and got the party off to a good start on 18 minutes. Raddy Majewski made his way through the Pilgrims defence with ease and picked out Earnshaw on the edge of the box with a great pass. Earnie did the decent thing and slotted the ball past Stockdale to put the Reds’ one up.

Plymouth’s only real chance of the half fell to Judge. He forced Camp into action, with a long range effort, that had the keeper at full stretch to keep the ball out. Forest doubled their lead on 34 minutes, with one of the scrappiest goals of the season. Moussi fed the ball into the box and a scramble ensued, that resulted in the ball going into the net off what I thought was Blackstock’s backside. Still, they all count and Forest certainly weren’t disputing it. 2-0 at the break and they had hardly broke out in a sweat.

The second half was less rivetting than the first and it was time for the City Ground faithful to burst into song and warm up the old vocal chords for the Playoffs in a couple of weeks time. Mexican waves and a good old singalong were the order of the day, as just for a change we could just sit back in the sunshine and watch the lads have a bit of a kick about.

Tyson went off injured with only 6 minutes remaining, with a suspected hair missing from the back of his leg. He wasn’t having the best of games in fairness to him, so giving McGugan a run out was smart move. Young Lewis looked like he was going to make us all start chanting his name again, because as soon as he came on we were awarded a free kick on the edge of the box and he stepped up to take it. The ball was ideally placed, but his lazy effort, smacked into the wall and was cleared to safety by the Plymouth defence. There was just time for one last hurrah, with substitute Anderson getting his name on the scoresheet. Some neat play between Moussi and McGugan saw the ball slotted into the path of Anderson, who had the simplest of tasks in putting the ball past the keeper, just before the final whistle went.

The result means we will finish the season no lower than 4th in the table, but gives no indication as to who we will face in the Playoffs. That will be decided after the final game, next Sunday, when we travel to Scunthorpe to bring down the curtain on what has been a quite fantastic season for all us Forest fans. The players and coaching staff came out to thank supporters after the whistle and were warmly greeted by those who stayed. Well done Nottingham Forest, it really has been a remarkable year.