SIMPLY AWESAM
Three & easy
ON-FIRE Forest set themselves up to grab automatic promotion off Bournemouth on Tuesday night.
Steve Cooper’s men could say goodbye to the Championship if they win at Bournemouth and follow that with a victory at Hull next weekend.
Forest were scorching as Sam Surridge got a second-half hat-trick and Swansea were torn to pieces. But it could have been more, claimed
Cooper (below).
“We could have had five goals by half-time,” he said. Forest are now three points behind Bournemouth and a goal better off.
A win on
Tuesday and
Forest will be second behind
Fulham with one game to play.
Who would have thought that when Cooper took over with Nottingham Forest bottom of the Championship in October?
The brief from millionaire Greek owner Evangelos Marinakis was simply ‘keep us up’.
Thirty-six Championship games later and Cooper has won 22 of them and lost only six.
“A brilliant win for us. It went to plan,” said Cooper, who took Swansea to the play-offs and then the play-off final a year ago when they lost to Brentford.
“I don’t say we could have had five goals by halftime, lightly. You could see it yourselves, the chances were there.”
Swansea keeper Andy Fisher made save after save and all Forest had to show in the first half was a bizarre Jack Colback goal.
Colback forced the ball in after 22 minutes but ref Graham Scott awarded a penalty and sent off Swansea’s Cyrus Christie for handball.
Scott’s goal-line technology watch must be on the blink because fourth official Oliver Langford got involved and said the ball was over the line before Christie hooked it back with his hand.
Scott’s rethink was a yellow card for Christie and a goal for Colback.
Because of Fisher’s saves, Swansea were able to equalise in the 28th minute, Michael
Obafemi scoring a terrific, skilful goal.
But Christie must have wished he’d been red-carded and was out of the line of fire as Forest roared in four more. Surridge’s hat-trick came with a 48th-minute header from James Garner’s corner, a wonderful flighted shot into the top corner four minutes later and the last one bashed in after Djed Spence hit the bar with a cross.
Sub Alex Mighten finished it off when he bulldozed his way through to score six minutes from time, leaving Forest with 11 wins from their last 15 league games. The Cherries look ready to be picked.