Luke Chambers became the first player this season to breach Boro's defence when he scored what was arguably his best Forest goal to date, earning Forest a much-deserved equaliser right on the hour with an exquisite overhead volley from an Arron Davies corner. That goal cancelled out Boro's earlier strike, which had come just a couple of minutes before half time from Adam Johnson, who had exploited Chris Cohen's weakness at left back to give his team the lead.
There were less than 9,000 people in attendance, but those who did make the trip were rewarded for their efforts as it was a fantastic end-to-end game which either side could have won in normal time. Paul Smith, who was in goal in place of the rested Lee Camp, made some really good saves, while at the other end, Forest looked very dangerous once Billy Davies had made three substitutions, bringing on Nathan Tyson, David McGoldrick and Dele Adebola in the last fifteen minutes.
Rob Earnshaw, though, who had started the game alongside Dexter Blackstock looked like a player desperately short on confidence and rather worryingly his body language suggested his heart was just not in it at all. Not surprisingly he was one of the players who was replaced. Maybe rumours that he could be on his way out are not that far off the mark. If he keeps this sort of form up, I wouldn't be too unhappy if he did leave if it meant we could use the cash to buy a defender or two.
Not that the defence was terrible last night or anything. Far from it. Wes Morgan and Chambers both had very good games, as did Chris Gunter, and apart from the sloppiness that led to the Boro goal, Cohen wasn't troubled too much. But this was just a League Cup game when the big clubs are well known to perform well below-par, so I won't read too much into it. All I can say, though, is that apart from the Watford game a week ago, our defence hasn't done that badly. I'm still a little bit apprehensive about Saturday, though, when Derby are in town. It would be a shame if Cohen has to play left back again for that one as he is really missed in midfield. Hopefully Joel Lynch will have recovered from his back injury, although I'm not really a big fan of his to tell you the truth.
After six minutes of injury time (much of it awarded because of an injury to the referee!) the game went into extra time. Forest's triple striker substitution really paid off as it meant we were really fresh up front. I don't know what Gareth Southgate said to his Boro players once the full time whistle had blown at the end of the 90 minutes, but they simply were not in it in extra time as Forest completely dominated. Radoslaw Majewski who has been brilliant for us so far this season capped another fine performance with a well-taken goal in the 103rd minute. That turned out to be the match winner, which booked Forest's place in the 3rd round of the competition for the first time in five years. It would be nice to think that we could have a bit of a cup run this season. Far from being a distraction, it could well work in our favour and give us some real momentum for the more important games in the League. You need only look at what Burnley's cup exploits did for them last year for evidence of that.
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