Daily Star Sunday

Brennan’s two good for sorry Seasiders

- By NEIL GOULDING

BLACKPOOL N FOREST

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STEVE COOPER heaped praise on Brennan Johnson after he fired Nottingham Forest one step closer to the coveted play-off places.

The Forest forward bagged a brilliant firsthalf brace as the visitors put Blackpool to the sword at Bloomfield Road.

Welsh ace Johnson’s deadly double, his 13th and 14th strikes of the season, added to Philip Zinckernag­el’s fortunate deflected opener and Sam Surridge’s fourth.

And Forest boss Cooper insisted: “He is excellent, isn’t he?

“His whole approach to playing for the team and the contributi­on he makes is always a good one. It was good. We’re delighted to have him.

“The most pleasing thing today is that everyone is obviously happy with the result.

“But the attitude was, right, let’s get on to the next one. I like that.”

Johnson, who has scored nine goals since Christmas, provided the cross for Zinckernag­el’s 11th-minute opener.

The talented 20-yearold then buried his first with an instinctiv­e effort on the half-hour mark before getting his second six minutes later as he pounced on a poor clearance.

Surridge hit a fourth with eight minutes left before Callum Connolly grabbed a late consolatio­n for the Seasiders.

Blackpool boss Neil Critchley said: “They had some luck. We’ve been punished today. Nearly everything that could’ve gone wrong did.”

BLACKPOOL: Grimshaw 4; Sterling 4, Ekpiteta 4, Thornily 4, Husband 4; Bowler 5, Stewart 5 (Connolly (60th) 6), Dougall 4, Hamilton 5 (Anderson (63th) 5); Madine 5, Yates 5 (Lavery (75th) 5)

NOTTINGHAM FOREST: Samba 6; Worrall 6, Figueiredo 6, McKenna 7; Spencer 7, Yates 6, Garner 7, Colback 6; Zinckernag­el 7 (Lolley (74th) 5); Johnson 9 (Grabban (66th) 6), Davis 7 (Surridge (66th) 7)

STAR MAN: Brennan Johnson

REF: J Gillett

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 ?? ?? AT THE DOUBLE: Johnson
AT THE DOUBLE: Johnson

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