Forest show Frank there’ll be no strolls in the Park this season
FORTY-FIVE years ago, when Brian Clough was leading Nottingham Forest to perhaps the most remarkable title triumph ever, the odyssey began with an opening-day victory at Goodison.
It’s fair to say that even those Forest fans who still believe in miracles aren’t expecting their club to be troubling the trophy engravers in May.
But at least the 3,000 supporters, who swapped the banks of the Trent for Merseyside, will have travelled home with their hopes well and truly fired that this won’t be just a one-season sojourn into the top flight.
They celebrated like it was the late-70s all over again when Brennan Johnson fired them into the lead nine minutes from time after Jordan Pickford had spilled Ryan Yates’ shot.
And, although their hopes of another August win in Everton’s fading old stadium were dashed by Demarai Gray’s late equaliser, it would appear that the home supporters have more to keep them awake at nights.
Four points from three games is a decent return for Steve Cooper’s side.
Frank Lampard’s team beat the drop by the skin of their teeth last season.
While Forest have braced themselves for the culture shock by spending almost £150million on new recruits, the
Toffees will spend the final days of the transfer window trying to turn Anthony Gordon’s head away from Chelsea.
Gordon didn’t look like a £45m footballer.
But when you’re a local lad of 21 who has already carried your team through one relegation battle, it does tend to take a heavy toll.
He was booked and failed to take an injury-time chance that would have given the home side a win they did not deserve.
Lampard (above) will know that there are only so many times you can get away with it. He will also understand how tough it is for a player to turn their back on Chelsea and the lure of fighting for the title and the Champions League. Opportunity often only knocks once in football.
Gordon, having spent the first two defeats of the new season sacrificing himself as a false striker, was back on familiar territory on the right flank of Everton’s attack.
He worked hard, did his share of the dirty work and earned his daily bread.
But there is a myriad of reasons why Chelsea still want to sign him.
However, Everton’s need to keep him is clearly more pressing.
The Toffees lost nine times in front of their own supporters last season.
Only relegated Norwich had a worse away record.
This campaign started with successive defeats and now a draw against a side that has not played at this level for 23 years.
Cooper has been forced into the rebuild of his team by summer departures.
Former Liverpool full-back Neco Williams was outstanding on his return to the outskirts of Stanley Park, even attempting a first-half rabona. Orel Mangala,
the mountainous Belgium midfielder, did a decent impression of a £13m wrecking ball as he smashed into anyone wearing a blue shirt.
And, in goal, Dean Henderson showed why Manchester United were ready to sell David de Gea last summer by making tough saves look routine.
Cooper appeared to sense the game was there for the taking on the hour when he sent on £42.5m new boy Morgan Gibbs-White for his debut.
And Forest duly made a brief spell of pressure tell when Johnson – son of muchtravelled former Jamaica striker David Johnson – showed he is a chip off the old block.
Everton’s fans had seen it all before. But there was still a sense of disbelief that then started to make way for open dissent when Gray salvaged a point.
Gray appeared to be on a one-man mission in the first half to force those Forest fans, who were telling him he was just a “Leicester reject”, to choke on their words.
He forced Henderson into two smart saves and was just off target with a vicious shot that dipped just too late.
When he finally got a close-up look into the whites of Henderson’s eyes – after Pickford had caught Forest’s defence square with a huge clearance – his finish was clinical.