Crystal Palace 1-3 Nottingham Forest: Palace Punished for Profligacy as Forest Strike Late in First Half
SportSignals Match Desk · Football analysis desk ·
Crystal Palace 1-3 Nottingham Forest. Write it down. That scoreline tells you everything you need to know about accountability and what happens when you do not take your chances. Palace created more. Palace had more possession. Palace hit the woodwork three times. And Palace lost. End of.
The Numbers Lie If You Are Not Looking Properly
I do not need a laptop to tell me what happened here. Palace had 57 per cent of the ball. They created eight big chances and missed seven of them. Seven. That is not bad luck. That is a failure of execution. That is a standards problem. Nottingham Forest created four big chances and missed one. One. That is the difference between the teams on the day and it has nothing to do with how much of the ball you had.
Crystal Palace hit the woodwork three times. I have seen it. I have been in dressing rooms where that happens and the manager looks you in the eye and tells you that the football gods are against you. They are not against you. You are against yourself. You had 24 shots to Forest's 13. You had 17 shots inside the box to their 11. You lost 3-1. The thing is, if you cannot put the ball in the net when it matters, none of those numbers mean anything at all.
Dan Ndoye Scores and Then Forest Take Over
Forest went behind inside three minutes. Dan Ndoye put the ball in the net with a right-foot shot and you would have backed Palace to go on and win the match at that point. They were on the front foot, they were on their own ground, and the crowd was behind them. What happened next is what this piece is really about.
Jefferson Lerma picked up a yellow card in the 16th minute for a foul. A midfielder with a booking before the half hour mark. That is the kind of decision that can change a match and it absolutely did. At 45 minutes, Lerma headed home from an Adam Wharton assist to make it 2-1 to Forest. The same player who was carded earlier in the match then headed in at the end of the first half. That is desire. That is a player willing his team forward. I respect that regardless of what shirt he is wearing.
But go back to the 41st minute. Daichi Kamada finished from a Quinten Timber assist to level the match at 1-1. A left-foot shot. Clinical. Forest had barely been in the game and they were level. That is what clinical football looks like. You do not need 24 shots. You need composure and you need to compete when the chance arrives.
The First Half Was the Match
Forest went into half time 2-1 up after being behind inside three minutes. Palace had done the hard part. They had created the chances. They had the better of the play in patches. And they were losing at the break. That should tell every Palace player exactly where the problem is. You can dominate possession, you can pin a team back, you can create big chance after big chance. But if you cannot execute the basics when it counts, you will lose. Unacceptable. There is no other word for it.
Yéremy Pino Finishes It Off
Yéremy Pino scored in the 59th minute to make it 3-1 and that was that. Right-foot shot. Game over. To his credit, or rather not to his credit at all, Pino then picked up a yellow card in the 60th minute for unsportsmanlike conduct. One minute after scoring. That tells you something about the heat of the match, though it tells you more about a player who cannot keep his head after a good moment. Standards apply to everyone, in every minute.
Palace's response was to keep pushing but they never looked like scoring again. Forest made their substitutions, managed the match, and saw it out. Forest won 21 duels to Palace's 47 won on the other side. That is roughly even. Forest won 9 tackles to Palace's 7. Forest also had 18 successful headers to Palace's 14 despite having less of the ball. That aerial dominance from a side with less possession is significant. They were harder to play through, harder to beat in the air, and ultimately far more clinical with their opportunities.
Palace's Problems Are Not Complicated
Listen, I am not going to dress this up as something complicated. Crystal Palace came into this match having won one and lost three of their previous five Premier League matches. They had conceded 11 goals in those five games. Forest came in with one win, two draws and two losses from five. Neither side was in brilliant form. But form only takes you so far. On the day, Forest were better in the moments that mattered.
Palace have two major injury absences and that is a genuine problem. But it does not excuse missing seven big chances. It does not excuse hitting the woodwork three times and failing to convert. The desire to put the ball in the net has to be there regardless of who is on the treatment table. Accountability means you look at your own performance before you start pointing at reasons why things went wrong.
Forest also had a suspended player available from 12 October so they were not exactly at full strength either. Both teams had problems. Forest found a way to win. Palace did not.
What This Result Means
Forest take three points from a ground where they came into the match with two previous meetings ending in draws. They broke that pattern in the clearest possible way. Three goals, controlled aggression, and a clean understanding of what a football match is actually about. You score more than the other team. That is it. That is the whole thing.
Palace will reflect on the woodwork, the big chances missed, and the way Forest turned the match around before half time. The thing is, reflection only means something if it changes behaviour. If Palace come out next week and miss another five big chances, then nothing has been learned and nothing has changed. Standards either exist or they do not. There is no middle ground on that. End of.
