Forest 3 Bristol City 2 – Blackstock on target as Robins reliant on Turner errors

By: Tim | April 13th, 2009

Garner scores his sixth goal of the season, despite the lack of starts... At the start of the season you may remember me saying ‘us Forest fans could be in for a few high scoring games’, well, with the exception of a few tonkings, and the odd match here or there, its not really turned out that way for us. The Bristol match can join the ranks of the ‘odd match here or there’, though, as this turned out to be an exciting and free-flowing game with chances, and goals, at both ends.

When I say exciting obviously I mean for the neutral, for the Forest fans this was nail biting, brown trousers time – we came back from a goal behind, twice, and I had the nervy feeling that Norwich were going to get something from playing away at Swansea. Southampton had already lost to Wolves the night before, too, so there was added pressure as we knew that a good result here could see us move away from them, and possibly the relegation zone as well.

Forest didn’t start very well, on loan keeper Iain Turner scuffed a cross in to the path of Sproule early on, he was presented with an open goal and duly made it 1 nil. We kept pressing though, and Earnshaw made it one each just over fifteen minutes later after a hopeful ball in to the box from Blackstock fell kindly to him, he slotted home from just outside the six yard box.

There was an air of inevitability about City’s second goal, not in terms of Turner’s poor play (who is now ruled out for the rest of the season by the way) but the fact that it was a former Forest target, Dele Adebola, who put the visitors ahead. A seemingly nothing ball forward was met by the head of Adebola, who was just inside the box, and when Turner raced off his line, completely unnecessarily, it allowed Adebola’s looping header to go over him and in to the net.

The outlook was bleak at this point, but four minutes later the game changed completely when City had a man sent off for a second bookable offence – the resulting free-kick was floated in by McGugan and met by Garner, who levelled the scores at 2-2. It’s a shame that Garner hasn’t got more starts really, he has got a good goal scoring record against his appearances – my guess is that Davies is going for experience over youth, although some fans think the pair have fallen out. We pushed everything forward to get the three points after his goal, when, just in to injury time, Blackstock popped up with a vital goal that sealed the three points.

After some head tennis in and around the area, the ball eventually dropped for him to volley it from ten yards out, it went low to the keepers left and in to the net. In truth it could have been more in the later stages, were it not for some great keeping by Basso, but it didn’t really matter – we got the three points and climbed out of the relegation zone after Swansea did us a favour by beating Norwich. Highlights are available here.

Davies was full of praise for Blackstock after the match: “He led the line brilliantly. You need someone like that up front and he was a big asset to us holding the ball up. His flick-ons were invaluable and he showed great technique for his goal”. He is definitely a great addition to the team, even more so when you consider that Earnshaw is now out for the rest of the season due to a knee injury. It really makes you wonder why QPR allowed him to leave – it’s reported that Paulo Sousa lost his job there recently for speaking out about it, although the official line was that he divulged ‘confidential and sensitive information’.

Anyway, we’ve got Sheffield United away today, the trickiest tie of our run-in by far. United are the form team in the Championship at the moment, they’ve won their last five matches and haven’t lost since the Sheffield derby in early February – if we can get a result at Bramhall Lane it’ll go a long way to making us safe.