MITROVIC ON FIRE AS FOREST ARE FELLED
Cooper protest over referee
ALEKSANDAR Mitrovic blasted apart Steve Cooper’s dream start as Nottingham Forest head coach.
The division’s top scorer took his stunning run to 15 goals in 14 games as he bids to fire secondplaced Fulham straight back into the Premier League.
Head coach Marco Silva refused to speculate on how many goals the Serbian might end up with.
He said: “Of course Mitrovic is important to us. But it is not important to me what is the total he scores this season. It is not in his mind either.
“What Mitrovic scores will bea consequence of our performances. It is up to us to create the positions for him to score. We have beaten a team today that was in a very good moment, winning five of their last six games and drawing one. Everyone knows what our goal is for the end of the season and we keep playing towards that.”
Forest gifted Fulham a goal after seven minutes. Jean-Michael Seri’s low corner caught them out and no one was marking Mitrovic as he flicked the ball on and Djed Spence put it in his own net.
Cooper was furious and claimed referee Matthew Donohue missed Forest players being blocked off by Fulham, leaving Mitrovic free.
Donohue was a replacement for James Linington and Cooper said: “I’m not going to blame the referee for the result but I’m very annoyed with that first goal.
“He wasn’t supposed to referee the game. He was a late change and he didn’t look ready. Fair play to Fulham, they work the fouls and the blocks really well, but the referees have got to be at a level to see that.
“The referee fell short today and it really affected him for the rest of the game, knocked his confidence a little bit.” Fulham left it until the second half to pile in the goals, three coming in nine minutes.
Defenders Tobias Figueiredo and Scott McKenna had their heads in their hands after they messed up in the 58th minute, gifting the ball to Mitrovic to score one of his easiest goals.
Neeskens Kebano and Harry Wilson one-two’d through Forest for Kebano to get the third in 61 minutes. And after Ryan Yates hauled down Denis Odoi, Mitrovic hammered in the penalty.
NOTTINGHAM FOREST (3-4-1-2): Samba 6; Worrall 6, Figueiredo 5 (Mighten 60, 5), McKenna 5; Spence 6, Yates 6, Colback 6 (Garner 51, 5), Lowe 6; Zinckernagel 6 (Lolley 62, 5); Johnson 6, Grabban 5.
FULHAM (4-2-3-1): Rodak 6; Odoi 7 (Tete 77, 5), Tosin 7, Ream 7, Robinson 7; Seri 7, Cairney 7; Wilson 8, Reid 7, Kebano 8 (Onomah 71, 5); Mitrovic 9 (Carvalho 83).
Goals: Spence 7 og, Mitrovic 58, 67 pen, Kebano 61.