GOAL! Nottm Forest 0-1 Man Utd (Antony 32)
Antony scores – and you’ll like this – a poacher’s goal.
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31 min Or over the crossbar, as it turns out: Gibbs-White, striving for perfection, curls it onto the roof of the net.
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31 min Danilo’s daisycutter from 20 yards deflects off Eriksen and rolls a few yards wide. That means another corner for Forest, and it’ll be going straight under the crossbar like all the others…
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30 min “I feel for Sabitzer, hurting himself in today’s warm-up after he enjoyed such a sparkling night out with those two clinical goals in United’s previous match,” says Peter Oh. “Speaking of the Austrian, I’d like to point out a small but grating point. Every English-speaking commentator I’ve heard pronounces his name sah-BITZ-er. It drives me up the wall to hear that. The correct pronunciation is SAH-bitzer. Nobody says lin-DEL-of or eh-RIK-sen, do they? Feels good to get that off my chest.”
Hang on, you didn’t tell us how to pronounce your surname? (‘Oh’, etc.)
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29 min For different reasons, Antony and Sancho have been disappointing in the first half hour. Martial has been quiet, too, though he has a bit of credit in the bank at the moment. Forest look comfortable, in truth, certainly when Bruno Fernandes doesn’t have the ball.
26 min I think the ball hit McKenna’s arm, in fact, as he wrestled with Martial and Maguire, so it would probably have been disallowed anyway. But it was another terrific corner, and Forest will fancy their chances every time they get a set-piece in the final third.
16.55 BST25 min: McKenna hits the post! Gibbs-White coaxes a wicked inswinging corner towards the far post, where McKenna fights with a couple of United defenders and forces the ball against the post! At least I think that’s what happened, though it’s hard to be sure and we haven’t seen a replay yet.
16.54 BST24 min Awoniyi runs the left channel, forcing Maguire to concede a corner. Forest look threatening both on the break and from set pieces, and as I type they have six players in the six-yard box…
16.53 BST22 min “Welsh/Liverpool affiliations notwithstanding, I’m a big fan of Neco Williams,” says Matt Dony. “But he hasn’t quite kicked on as I’d have hoped. He really did look like a star-in-waiting for Wales, and with the spate of retirements recently, we need all the stars we can get! Yes, he’s playing in defence in a poor team who keep losing, but he hasn’t shown the progress I wanted this year. Somewhat balanced out by Brennan Johnson establishing himself as a very good Premier League player, but it really shouldn’t be either/or. He’s still young, and still with bags of potential. I’ll be watching closely next season, wherever he’s playing.”
There are a few Liverpool youth players who I thought would have made more progress in the last few years: Curtis Jones is one, Ben Woodburn as well. The way some young players develop and others don’t is endlessly fascinating (and, in some cases, kind of heartbreaking). I’m still waiting for Jules Maiorana’s breakthrough season; he was the first player that made me do a little teenage hipster knee tremble.
