Grabban puts goal drought behind him to down leaders
A six-game goalless start is not the best way to endear yourself to new fans. Thankfully for summer signing Lewis Grabban, and the Nottingham Forest supporters hungry to finally enjoy a sustained promotion push, the striker has very much rediscovered his touch in front of goal.
The winner against dethroned league leaders Sheffield United yesterday was his 10th goal in his past 11 appearances.
Only Brentford’s Neal Maupay (18) has more Championship goals in 2018 than Grabban (17), who spent last season on loan at Sunderland and Aston Villa before moving permanently from Bournemouth to Nottingham Forest for a fee reported to be £6million.
“I’ve know Lewis for four or five years, I wanted him at Middlesbrough so I knew how important he could be for the team,” said victorious manager Aitor Karanka after his side moved up to sixth. “I didn’t have any doubt that Lewis was one of the best. When he is on the opponent’s team, you know how difficult he is to stop.”
Karanka was undoubtedly grateful to his striker’s predatory instincts after a game which failed to ignite, despite both teams having serious designs on a promotion push this season.
The crucial breakthrough came on 69 minutes, when club-record signing Joao Carvalho showed fleet of foot on the left before sending the ball in for Grabban to flick home with his head.
It said much about the game that the effort was only Forest’s second on goal after defender Jack Robinson had volleyed straight at goalkeeper Dean Henderson in the first half.
“The big picture is we beat the top of the table team and the team which had the best form in the league,” added Karanka. “We can’t forget they’ve been working together for three years with the same manager improving every single day and we’ve been working together just three, four months and were the better team.”
Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder’s reacted by keeping his players in the changing room for 45 minutes after the match had ended.
“We have not played well and not got anything from the game,” he said. “Our quality was way down on what we normally produce. Going forward in possession we made so many bad errors, unforced errors.”