Nottingham Forest 3-1 Newcastle: Shocking performance. Shocking refereeing.

This time last year we were dumped out the Carabao Cup by Forest at St James’ Park, and they’ve got the better of ur once again this year – with three goals in extra time seeing us beaten 3-1.

We deserved nothing from the game based on our performance, but how we weren’t awarded a penalty in extra time (whilst 2-1 down) is beyond me. You won’t see a more clear penalty all season.

Murphy opened the scoring in the first few minutes, beating Fabian Schar to the cross after Kenedy was beaten too easily down the line.

It was an awful start and it didn’t get much better over the next 90 minutes. We lacked quality, urgency and looked all at sea at the back whenever we were put under any pressure, but the main issue was how toothless we were in attack.

The 92nd minute arrived and we finally showed some quality. Rondon set himself when slipped in at the back post and fired a shot across goal in off the post. Very well taken (after a solid bit of hold up play) and his first goal in a black and white shirt, but we weren’t back in the game for long.

Some hesitant defending and Darlow’s inability to deal with the cross saw Matty Cash smash home to make it 2-1 in the 94th minute. Just a minute later and Perez latched onto Rondon’s flick on, got there ahead of the goalkeeper and was barged over from behind – with Forest’s Luke Steele getting nowhere near the ball.

The ref waved it away and Forest went down the other end and made it 3-1. Game over and another early exit out of the cup.

We weren’t good enough and didn’t deserve to go through, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve been robbed of a blatant penalty – which would’ve almost certainly given us a chance to progress to the next round on penalties.

Kenedy was very poor. His touch was way off and he looked very under confident. Clark showed that he is NOT a left-back, looking very awkward all night. Atsu lacked urgency. Joselu’s hold up play was fairly non existent, Darlow was highly unconvincing and Schar (despite showing ability on the ball) had a few iffy moments defensively.

On the plus side, Rondon has his first goal for the club (and he took it very well), I like the look of Fernandez, and Sterry and Longstaff didn’t look out of place.

A horribly frustrating end to an even more frustrating game of football.

City away next..

(Fancy writing for us? Send any articles/ideas over to us at [email protected] & we’ll get back to you!)

 

About Olly Hawkins

As a Junior Magpie since birth and season ticket holder, I eat, sleep and breathe all things NUFC! Here at the blog, I aim to bring you news, views, match reports and transfer exclusives as and when I get them.

54 thoughts on “Nottingham Forest 3-1 Newcastle: Shocking performance. Shocking refereeing.

  1. Anyone watching The Debate???

    Go on Steve Howey son – he is voicing OUR point brilliantly well – best case put forward by any pundit yet.

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  2. Outstanding Steve Howey!! Loved you as a player, love you as a pundit lad ??. He represented us fans brilliantly there imo.

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  3. Longstaff only player to come out of the game with any credit. Kenedy and Atsu awfull need to spend big in January some hope of that happening

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  4. Glad I am not bothering with it any more. Whats the point. Until Ashley is gone, my interest is close to zero. Football in general has gone down the wrong oath anyway. Too inconsistent, corrupt and players diving all over the place or simply not trying. Game is full of conmen. Stealing from fans or stealing a living. No pride in the game any more. Its dull.

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  5. Ashley will always be Newcastle’s Achilles heel. He needs to go enough is enough. The man is a total money grabbing chav, in it for himself not the club. Dennis Wise, Joe Kinnear all love Ashley because no-one with a onze of sense would be stupid enough to employ them at PL level. Probably both brainwashed by Ashley’s propaganda. I totally agree with you Shamrock btw its just to depressing being a Newcastle fan these day’s.

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  6. We haven’t reached peak misery yet. I expect a loss against City and then 2 weeks of unnecessary international friendlies to try everyone’s patience more. But it could be worse. The main sport could be American Football which takes 3 and a quarter hours and involves only 13 minutes of actual action. Not to worry though they can always fill up the time with ads for **** pills and cars.

    I think we will get past this and will probably get something against Arsenal.

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  7. Not surprised at Clarke’s poor performance at leftback. When he has played there before he was poor. Positioning all wrong. Time to drop Kenedy and Atsu and give Roberts a go. At least I am sure he will put the effort in. Can we send Kenedy back at this stage and save on the wage bill or get someone with more determination in January? Murphy I think is worth persevering with.

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  8. Many share Shams sentiments. This evening for instance I really couldn’t give two hoots.

    As for Howey- I thought he was excellent. He put out point across well and you could see he’d had the facts before hand. What they should have done is have Wise on at the same time.

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  9. Steve Howey was brilliant on the Debate last night. And in general there was a lot of understanding of the fans plight. Howey pointed out that we aren’t unrealistic and don’t expect to compete with top 6 clubs but need to see progression, especially after finishing 10th. He mentioned the deterioration of the stadium decor, toilets and academy and training facilities. And the total lack of care of the club and fans by Ashley. He had a proper, get it off the chest rant. Bellers looked lost for a decent reply.
    Bellamy said he admires Ashley as a business man but that he felt it’s time he sold the club.
    All agreed it’s a mexican stand off now and that something has to give. Bellamy thinks it’s time
    the fans stopped attending games but that it’s unlikely because of our fans loyalty.
    He also said he thought Ashley isn’t that bothered about relegation .

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  10. E Hodgson:
    Longstaff only player to come out of the game with any credit. Kenedy and Atsu awfullneed to spend big in January some hope of that happening

    Agreed – but I think Sterry did quite well too, certainly bumped himself up the pecking order ahead of Manquillo for me.

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  11. Suspect Steve Howey won’t ever have to buy a pint in Newcastle again for a very long time. 🙂

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  12. Sharpy, Sterry was very good as was Fernandez. Perez deserved a pen and his passion at the end for not getting it was at least heartening.
    Make no mistake though we are in big trouble if things don’t pick up soon, that owner is killing this club and trying to ruin Rafa in the process. How big is mikes ego that he will risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater .

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  13. Why is everyone writing off Kenedy? I know he has had a couple of bad games but he was probably Man of the Match against Spurs and didn’t even play in the borefest against Chelsea.

    He goes from player who helped save our PL status to pariah in 2 bad games when the rest of the team hardly covered themselves in glory. If we had bought him with the transfer profit I think most would have said the transfer window wasn’t the total disaster it is now portrayed as and given the club a “C”.

    I do not agree that NUFC fans are delusional but some are fickle. I might even agree with Richard Keys if he said so. BTW, fun facts from wikipedia. They wrote 2 short paragraphs on his personal life. The first said he was divorced in 2017 after an affair with his daughter’s friend. The 2nd that he had laser surgery in 2006 to remove hair from his hands. I think someone on wiki doesn’t like him.

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  14. Eric – agree with you about Kenedy. He’s not the first to post a couple of poor performances. What about Atsu though – he just looks dreadful. I also note Rafa saying Murphy will come good in about 2 years. He’s 23 now FFS!

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  15. georgio: I agree on Murphy, he should be pushing to start every game and if Kenedy or Ritchie are struggling for form he has to step up.

    On Atsu, I was surprised when we signed him and consider him a squad player only. It was probably a mistake as he is very inconsistent and when he is bad he is really bad. You are not going to get every signing correct. At least he is not a Yannick Bolasie 🙂

    Will we ever find out who Rafa actually wanted and would they have fared any better? He has made mistakes with transfers, all managers do.

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  16. Eric, Kenedy is young and relatively inexperienced so his performances will be up and down. It just makes the decision to make him our focal point all the more bizarre.

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  17. Far too many of our back up players are just nowhere near good enough. Atsu and Murphy, Manqillo, Joselu. I’m not convinced by either Schar or Muto and then are Darlow or Clark good enough? Ki seems OK but a very poor man’s Shelvey.
    Disgruntled and about to get worse.

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  18. early in the season i know but thats four games plus pre-season games i have seen,ive seen a little of other teams play,take Cardiff, Hudders out to me we are on their level,the rest look far far better than we are,imo we are in big big trouble.i hope ime wrong but Rafa will struggle to keep us up

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  19. Ice: I said before the season started I thought we would be in the bottom 3 at Christmas but we would just about manage to stay up. That was before the Lejeune injury which makes it even worse. We are really screwed with any long term injury to Shelvey.

    The squabbling doesn’t help, neither does constantly being in the media about Ashley. I didn’t see the debate with Howey but I think even if he was standing up against the barrage of criticism from total prats it is still a bit self defeating because it just carries on the narrative that we are a club in trouble. The players have to hear it.

    You know what it like in Newcastle. There is always talk about the team and it doesn’t help that the Chronic are writing an article a day about Ashley. Adding fuel to the fire. For once I am not criticizing them for that because it is the big picture news and that’s their job. I am just saying it makes things worse.

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  20. Imagine if any of our previous managers had 19% possession at home against Chelsea and then got mauled by Forest 😆

    Deary me this is going to be an awful season.

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  21. It was always going to be who are the 3 worse teams than us and you are struggling for the 3rd after Huddersfield and Cardiff. I thought maybe Southampton because when a team has a bad season it often continues into the next and they have Mark Hughes who has developed a bad habit of throwing his players under the bus and blaming everybody but himself – a Mourinho mini-Me.

    There is very often a surprise team for the drop and I thought that might be Burnley but it just might be us. I am sticking with my prediction of 6 points after 8 games and don’t expect the gloom to lift much.

    We won’t be as bad as we were against Chelsea and once the City game is over but the International Break (for no reason whatsoever) will just pile on more pressure.

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  22. Stu – Very true. Been the same scenario for close on ten years really hasn’t it.

    I have less and less time to find streams or come on back to blogs, let alone go to matches. Maybe it’s just as well eh, can we all go on holiday until someone else is in charge? 😆

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  23. Good to see you back on Newkie!

    I’m hanging on to the thought that of the team last night only Kenedy was from our best team. Things will get better.

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  24. I didn’t expect it, but I’m still disappointed for Lascelles and Shelvey not getting a chance in this England squad. Whilst I get we aren’t performing as a team, I do think those 2 have still been playing well enough to at least have Southgate take a closer look.

    Mind you, all this in house battling is probably enough to put him off.

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  25. Sharpy17:
    I didn’t expect it, but I’m still disappointed for Lascelles and Shelvey not getting a chance in this England squad.Whilst I get we aren’t performing as a team, I do think those 2 have still been playing well enough to at least have Southgate take a closer look.

    Mind you, all this in house battling is probably enough to put him off.

    plus they are both injured.

    Nice to see Newkie on again.

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  26. So so glad that despicable predatory company WONGA have gone down the *******.
    They took out a loan in a bid to survive but still went into administration.
    Karmas a *****. 🙂 🙂 🙂 😈

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  27. Perhaps those Wonga shirts will become valuable like when an artist dies. They were so cheaply made, a lad down the pub had one on and the Wonga logo was peeling and flaking off and then one week just came off in pieces.

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  28. I have a problem with the replica shirts in general as I am sure many others do. Obviously there is the price. Then you usually end up with a tacky company as sponsor plastered all over the front. I didn’t realise there were so many crappy betting companies. And finally there is the shiny, grippy material that does not flatter a middle aged man whose only six pack is in the fridge.

    I don’t even have one, I have a retro shirt with the broon ale logo bought deliberately a size too big and a cotton t-shirt with the badge on the front. I do see them at the pub and on TV and have made my assessment from that 🙂

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  29. I didn’t buy a single shirt whilst wonga were on the front. Just carried on wearing an old one .
    I have last years as does lewis as it looked good, especially the away one but i’m not getting any this season on principle. If fatty won’t spend why should i.
    Rangers get just 7p from every replicate shirt they sell, rest goes to SD. God knows how much Newcastle actually get from shirt sales.

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  30. So Merse is off again saying NUFC would rather be relegated and win a cup than play supposedly unwinnable games in the PL. Firstly, he is making a false equivalency because it is not an either/or proposition. The likelihood is relegation and NOT winning a cup. Then he is extrapolating from one game, the 3rd of the season and saying we have no hope. This is a team we beat in the PL 4 games ago and we also beat Man U last year. I expect us to have an up and down season, with more downs than ups but basing your whole argument on one bad game and the toughest game of the season is just plain stoopid Paul.

    And anybody on Blogs wishing for relegation so we can have easier and more entertaining games better be careful what they wish for. And why exactly would Ashley be more likely to leave if we are relegated, the sale price plunges and he loses money on his investment?

    If we get relegated and do not come straight back up it would be a disaster. To start with, Rafa would be gone. Then, most of our players do not have relegation clauses. Then Shelvey, Lejeune and Lascelles would be gone with vastly inferior replacements. And the parachute payments are a lot less for a second relegation.

    The parachute payments are about 40 million, then 30 then 10. Compare that to the 123 million we got from TV last year.

    Stay in the Championship for long and it gets even worse. What sort of team do you think we would have if we did a Norwich and stayed in the Championship for an extended time? The Championship TV money is less than 10 million a year. That doesn’t even get you a Jacob Murphy.

    We have a good example down the road of what could happen and Villa were about a week away from bankruptcy before they got a cash infusion. If they are not promoted, that wolf might be back at their door sooner rather than later.

    I think it is madness to wish for relegation no matter how much you hate the Fatman. A club our size, with the wages and infrastructure would be in real trouble.

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  31. If we get relegated we will be out of the money machine that the PL has become and still have Ashley. He is already disinterested but I doubt he would sell the club for less than he paid. We would have the worst of all worlds. He wouldn’t put up with losses for long so that means layoffs and vastly inferior playoffs as well as no investment in facilities. Is that really what people want? It is what you will get if we spend even a couple of years in The Championship.

    We got lucky with Hughton. Without him we could have become a ghost club like Coventry or Rangers for a while. Between relegations the TV money doubled which meant Ashley was willing to roll the dice with Rafa to get to the PL. I doubt he would do it a third time.

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  32. This is really funny. Apparently Charnley has told Rafa that Jabba isn’t happy that he’s never been invited to see a training session by Rafa. Does Jabba need an invite from Sports Direct Northumberland St store manager before he goes and buys a pair of Donnay.

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  33. kimtoon:
    like this beauty
    https://www.3retro.com/team/newcastle-united/newcastle-united/209_Newcastle-United-1996-Away-Retro-Football-Shirt.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIktysoNSV3QIVQZztCh2TWQScEAQYASABEgJu5vD_BwE

    Great link Kim, thanks. I’d much rather have one of these at less than half the price of the current shirts. I never bought a Wonga logo shirt… good riddance to them.. maybe when they go bankrupt Ashley will buy them for a few bob so he can make loans to his badly paid zero contract SD slaves… ?

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  34. Merson reckons wed rather play in the Championship than be in the PL and be this ****. To be fair, many of my mates enjoy the Fizzy more than this. My view is it’s completely irrelevant what division we play in whilst Jabba is here.

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  35. I posted on Ollys article he put up about Merson.
    What pisses me off most is that Merson speaks as though he’s ever had a conversation with a toon fan and knows what we want. I’m pretty sure when he made those comments he had Wigan and Birmingham in mind – who won a cup and went down, and stayed down – no, that’s not what I want for my club at all – and why are those the only options??.
    You can have short term gain with long term pain, or long term pain with no gain?.
    I take it the option where we get an owner who invests in the squad and strengthens it enough to give us a chance of competing in all 3 competitions – oh wait, that’s not an option under Ashley is it?!.

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  36. Can we finally put this ridiculous notion to bed that it is better to get relegated and compete each week than to be in PL and be rolled over by the likes of City and Chelsea. I pointed out above that it was only 4 games ago that we beat Chelsea 3-0 and also discussed the vast differences in finances. But also, it is only exciting for the top 6 or 7 and the longer you stay there the harder it gets to rebound without a sugar-daddy.

    Just look at some of the clubs with good support and stadiums that are down there. There are the relegated sides – Stoke, Swans and WBA. But there are other teams that have been down there forever and when the parachute payments run out so do your options. Look at Leeds, Bolton, Boro, Villa, Blackburn, Derby, Wigan, Norwich, Forest and QPR. They all have good stadiums and loyal support but have been stuck in the Championship doldrums. Usually incompetent ownership has been a factor.

    Is this what we want? We do not have a divine right to be in the PL. We are probably the biggest along with Villa and Leeds of teams who have been in The Championship. But look at their recent histories. Would you want that? Because that is where we are headed if we are relegated again.

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  37. You can compare it to the Champions League. Should Basel or Celtic not want to be in it because they will likely be rolled over by Real Madrid? No, the money allows them to buy better players and their fans get to see better quality players, both their team and the opposition. And you are in a group of 4 where every team is not Real Madrid and there will be some competitive games.

    In the case of Europe, there is also interesting travel to be had. We can aspire to that. At least the Europa League. And things never remain the same forever even though it looks like it will at the moment.

    There is also the TV where there is much better coverage in the CL and PL.

    I just don’t get why some people don’t want us to play at the highest level even if it does bring the occasional week of turgid football (Chelsea) or possible big defeat (this weekend).

    You can say that we will never get there with Ashley. But we are much more likely to be sold if we are a lower PL team than a midtable Championship team.

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  38. PSV are in Barcelona’s group. They have very little chance at the Camp Nou and will probably be beat 4-0. But some of the Eindhoven supporters will be able to tell their grandchildren they saw Messi live. Same with a team in Spain like Eibar. Their fans had the pleasure of seeing Bale, Ronaldo, Modric, Messi, Iniesta and Neymar in the flesh.

    You will not get any of this if you are in the Championship and even if we get pummeled on Saturday a consolation will be seeing Aguero and Silva and Peps verion of total football.

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  39. Btw, may I put a plug on here .. not footy related but, I just set up my photography site on Facebook. If anyone is interested in photography go take a look.. Roy Frankland Photography. It’s public so you should find it… feel free to follow and like and share if you want… ???

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  40. Hi folks – Sorry to be spoil sports but we’ve decided to ban the use of swear words on the comments section.

    You can still use them, but it’s just to let you know that they’ll be replaced with *** as and when they are used in the comments.

    Sorry folks, just thought we’d let you know!

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  41. Olly Hawkins:
    Hi folks – Sorry to be spoil sports but we’ve decided to ban the use of swear words on the comments section.

    You can still use them, but it’s just to let you know that they’ll be replaced with *** as and when they are used in the comments.

    Sorry folks, just thought we’d let you know!

    No probs Olly. *************** (just getting it out my system before the city match.. lol

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  42. Olly – I do it occasionally, often in the heat of the moment. Just out of interest, have you had complaints at all? Or is it an edict from above by some well meaning but churchy type? Even the BBC allow sh*te these days.

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  43. Eric Sykes:
    Can we finally put this ridiculous notion to bed that it is better to get relegated and compete each week than to be in PL and be rolled over by the likes of City and Chelsea. I pointed out above that it was only 4 games ago that we beat Chelsea 3-0 and also discussed the vast differences in finances. But also, it is only exciting for the top 6 or 7 and the longer you stay there the harder it gets to rebound without a sugar-daddy.

    Just look at some of the clubs with good support and stadiums that are down there. There are the relegated sides – Stoke, Swans and WBA. But there are other teams that have been down there forever and when the parachute payments run out so do your options. Look at Leeds, Bolton, Boro, Villa, Blackburn, Derby, Wigan, Norwich, Forest and QPR. They all have good stadiums and loyal support but have been stuck in the Championship doldrums. Usually incompetent ownership has been a factor.

    Is this what we want? We do not have a divine right to be in the PL. We are probably the biggest along with Villa and Leeds of teams who have been in The Championship. But look at their recent histories. Would you want that? Because that is where we are headed if we are relegated again.

    Eric, Do you think it matters what division we’re in whilst Jabba owns us and of yes, why?

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  44. FFS, Olly, man! How is it possible to not to use bad language following Jabba’s NUFC?

    Hadaway and *****, man!

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