JOHNSON FINDS RUTHLESS STREAK
Brennan delights Cooper
STEVE Cooper is thrilled that winger Brennan Johnson has added a ruthless streak to his armoury of talents.
Johnson, 20, grabbed his sixth goal in eight games, before Manchester United loanee James Garner wrapped up a straightforward home triumph over Bristol City.
And, on the former’s contribution, Cooper said: “I had a conversation with Brennan after Tuesday night (following the 0-0 draw at Preston) and it was good to see him get back to what he’s brilliant at – getting down the sides and being really creative.
“He’s also scoring goals now and, at that top end of the pitch, for all the ability we’ve got, there has to be an end product as well. He has that now with his assists and goals and we’ve got to keep pushing him on that.”
Cooper still felt his side should have won by a more convincing margin, but rightly praised away shot-stopper Daniel Bentley for keeping the score down.
“We played well from start to finish and were the dominant team. We were well worthy of a 2-0 win and it probably should have been more but, as long as we keep creating a good number of chances, I know we will score goals,” said the Forest boss.
The home side got off to a blistering start with Bentley called into two smart saves inside the first seven minutes.
First, he flew through the air to push Djed Spence’s curling edge-of-the-box effort behind after good work through the left channel by Keinan Davis. Then, he dived low to his left to keep out Steve Cook’s overhead kick from a Philip Zinckernagel corner.
Nigel Pearson’s men managed their first attempt just past the quarter-hour mark when top-scorer Andreas Weimann’s shot was deflected wide.
But Zinckernagel went on to bend wide of the far post at the other end and Johnson should have done better when he sidefooted wide from 12 yards after Davis had muscled his way past Joe Williams.
Johnson opened the scoring in the 38th minute, beating Bentley from an unfavourable angle at his near post with a right-footed strike. Bentley was back to his best on the stroke of half-time when he displayed excellent reflexes to repel a Davis header.
But he was picking the ball out of his net again within ten minutes of the restart when Garner’s precise side-footed effort found his bottom-right corner from the edge of the box after Scott McKenna and Max Lowe had combined well on the left flank.
Zinckernagel should have added a third when he intercepted Tomas Kalas’ woeful square pass to Williams but he fired straight at Bentley.
Away manager Pearson agreed that Bentley was his team’s star player on an afternoon when he thought his side were “miles off the pace”.
He said: “The players were second best in all departments and we were miles off the pace. We made bad decisions defensively and couldn’t pass the ball in midfield in the areas that we wanted to and the forwards aren’t magicians – they can’t conjure something up from nothing, so that’s why we ended up with nothing.”