Sabri Lamouchi assesses Forest draw; defends Grabban goal

Jo Harrison
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Sabri Lamouchi said that he was unhappy with his side’s performance, but believes a draw was the least they deserved after assessing Nottingham Forest‘s 2-2 draw at struggling Middlesbrough on Monday night.

Forest struck early through Ryan Yates, but found themselves trailing going into the interval after a quickfire double from Rudy Gestede and Lewis Wing. The visitors looked set to suffer a costly defeat before a highly-debated Lewis Grabban goal ensured the points were shared.

But rather than celebrate a point earned, Lamouchi was less than impressed with his players, saying: “I am not happy with the way we played, it was the wrong night.

“We started the right way, we scored, but after the goal we made more mistakes. We played in the wrong way, technical mistakes, the mentality was wrong. Their second goal, you can’t concede from a counter-attack.

“I was happy with the last 10 or 15 minutes, with more intensity. When we play simple, with intensity, we create more situations and we deserved to score more than one or two.”

Forest announced themselves as serious automatic promotion contenders with their 2-0 win over Leeds United last month, but have won just once since, causing them to lose ground on the top two. Last night’s draw means they are now three points behind third-placed Fulham and eight points adrift of second-placed Leeds – leaving them with ground to make up in the last ten games.

Grabban scored late on for Forest to salvage a draw at the Riverside, but there was controversy around the goal. Boro boss Jonathan Woodgate protested the goal, saying it was a foul on goalkeeper Aynsley Pears.

“Nine out of ten times that goal doesn’t count so I thought it was a bad decision from the referee. If you look at any contact on the goalkeeper it’s given.

“He backs in, he looked where he was and he put his arm across his chest, he didn’t get nowhere near it, it was a foul in my view and in 19,000 people’s eyes it’s a foul.” Woodgate said.

However, Lamouchi disagreed with Woodgate’s claims.

“There was no foul, easily, for the goal. I saw the replay just now, this was not a foul. Grabban doesn’t touch the keeper. He was not offside. For me it was not a foul. And we deserved to score anyway.”

The result leaves Woodgate’s men in the relegation zone ahead of a huge bottom-of-the-table clash against Charlton Athletic on Saturday.

Forest and Lamouchi will refuse to give up on the top two, and will look to get their charge back on track when they host in-form Millwall on Friday night.