Boro fury as Lewis grabs late equaliser
THIS felt cruel on a spirited Middlesbrough, but Jonathan Woodgate was wrong to claim Nottingham Forest’s late equaliser was unjust. The Boro boss had seen his side move to within four minutes of a first win in 10 matches, a victory that would have lifted them out of the Championship bottom three. But Forest striker Lewis Grabban pounced in the six-yard area to claim a point after standing his ground amid a tussle with goalkeeper Aynsley Pears. It was a legitimate goal and a clever finish, but Woodgate felt differently. ‘Nine times out of 10 that goal is not counted,’ he fumed. ‘If you look at any contact on the keeper it is always given. He backed into Aynsley, put his arm across his chest, he couldn’t get anywhere near it. It was a bad decision.’ Forest boss Sabri Lamouchi disagreed. ‘Easily, no foul,’ he said. ‘I saw the replay, Lewis never touched the keeper. And we deserved to score anyway.’ Before that, Boro had looked the likely and deserved winners. It felt as if their desperation for three points was greater than that of their visitors, who look resigned to finished in the play-offs having fallen eight points behind second-placed Leeds. Woodgate is fighting to stay in the division, not get out of it, and his side remain one point from safety. On the day that chairman Steve Gibson revealed he would not sack Woodgate regardless of Boro’s fate this season, a win would have been timely. The weekend’s results had not been kind to Boro — sucking them into the relegation zone for the first time since October — and when Forest took the lead just shy of the half-hour their situation grew more bleak. To that point the hosts had barely looked capable of creating a chance, let alone scoring a goal, so when Forest midfielder Ryan Yates drilled in from 20 yards you suspected Boro were beaten. What unfolded in the final five minutes of the first half, then, was entirely unexpected. Not only did the home side score a goal for the first time in five and a half hours of football, it was forgotten frontman Rudy Gestede who provided their moment of relief, heading in his first home goal in two years. Harold Moukoudi nodded Paddy McNair’s free-kick back across goal and Gestede showed the greatest desire amid a crowd of bodies to force the ball in. Buoyed by the rarity of a goal, the home fans urged their side to press for more in the final minutes of the half — and they obliged. Lewis Wing may have been the eventual scorer — steering in from 12 yards — but all of the credit went to 21-year-old left back Hayden Coulson, who assisted with a fine solo dribble. Coulson was the game’s best player by some distance and deserved to end on the winning side, but it was not to be.