Nottingham Forest 3-0 Sheffield United


By Paul Holland
November 2 2002

United went to City Ground with a strange formation of 3-1-5-1 and where humiliated to a 3-0 defeat with a brilliant performance from Forest and a very poor one from The Blades.

Nottingham Forest

Nottingham Forest
Lester 54, 61, Harewood 63

3

Sheffield United

0

Saturday 02 November 2002
Nationwide League Division One - City Ground

United went to City Ground with a strange formation of 3-1-5-1 and where humiliated to a 3-0 defeat with a brilliant performance from Forest and a very poor one from The Blades.

A fantastic Jack Lester performance in second half made sure that Nottingham Forest where unbeaten in nine games.

Forest opened the scoring in 54th minute when Lester darted to beat Paddy Kenny after Ricardo Scimeca crossed.

Seven minutes later Forest went 2-0 up when Marlon Harewood set up Lester, fired home from 18 yards out.

Goal scorer turned provider when Jack Lester fed David Johnson on right hand side and Johnson's square ball met Marlon Harewood who finished from six yards out.

Before the game, Forest were 6th and United 5th, the win was well deserved as United gave a bad performance.

Before they broke the deadlock Forest looked to be in a frustrating day as Paddy Kenny pulled off a string of saves including tipping over a Gareth Williams shot over bar.

Lester was danger man in  second half, but it was Johnson who was danger man in first. He was proving to be a thorn in United side and threatened to add to his 16 goals.

He cut in from the left to fire a shot just over the bar and then forced Kenny into an excellent save after prodding a close-range effort towards goal.

It was not all one-way traffic, however, and United were combative in midfield, but they were largely restricted to long-range efforts, with Michael Tonge and Carl Asaba testing Darren Ward in the Forest goal.

And when they threw men forward in the second half in a desperate attempt to get back into the game, they could not trouble Ward, even though Wayne Allison and Paul Peschisolido in particular peppered the Forest goal with shots.

There was to be no way back for the Blades, and Forest held on comfortably for a decisive victory.

Full-Time: Nottingham Forest 3-0 Sheffield United

Man of the Match: Not many contenders for this award after a bad performance, so I will give it Michael Tonge who was best player in United side.

Referee: Keith Hill
Attendance: 22,579
NFFC v SUFC
9 Shots on Target 1
7 Shots off Target 9
15 Fouls (Conceded) 9
4 Corners 8
1 Yellow Cards 1
0 Red Cards 0
Forest v Blades
Ward 01 Kenny
Louis-Jean 02 Jagielka
Dawson 03 Murphy
Walker 04 Page
Brennan 05 Montgomery
Williams 06 McCall
Scimeca 07 McGovern
Prutton 08 Brown
Lester 2 09 Tonge
Harewood 1 10 Allison
Johnson 11 Asaba
Jess (Johnson 84) Sub 1 Harley (McCall 61)
Roache Sub 2 Yates (Page 78)
Hjelde Sub 3 Ndlovu
Doig (Louis-Jean 71) Sub 4 Peschisolido (McGovern 61)
Westcarr Sub 5 Ten Heuvel