Rampant Nottingham Forest beat rock-bottom Southampton despite late flurry
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It is impossible to avoid the sense that something special is stirring on the Trent. Nottingham Forest averted a late scare to dispatch the bottom club Southampton to move level on points with second-placed Arsenal and extend their unbeaten run to eight Premier League matches.
![[Chris Wood scores Nottingham Forest’s third goal against Southampton]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8deedcd281202b313969744da9f44b0e2c8670d4/0_183_3694_2217/master/3694.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Forest were rampant, roaring into a 3-0 lead inside 41 minutes before the visitors pulled a goal back, via an unknowing Jan Bednarek, and then Paul Onuachu headed in from a corner early in second-half stoppage time to tee up an unlikely grandstand finish. Ola Aina then cleared a Bednarek header off the line from another corner.
So Saints, who led for 82 minutes at Old Trafford before collapsing as Amad Diallo hit a hat-trick for Manchester United on Thursday, belatedly showed some guts but it is now five defeats from five under Ivan Juric. Nuno Espírito Santo told how Aina, who played under Juric at Torino, gave him the lowdown on what to expect but few would have envisaged the finale that played out after Forest had a fourth goal disallowed by the referee, Anthony Taylor, after a VAR review. Aaron Ramsdale inadvertently fumbled Nikola Milenkovic’s header into his own net but an offside Chris Wood, again on the scoresheet, was deemed to have been interfering with play.
For Forest, this was another clinical display, all three first-half shots on target all resulting in goals, the opener from Elliot Anderson, his first for the club, before Callum Hudson-Odoi and Wood gave a considerable buffer. Southampton offered little in attack but got a fortuitous consolation, the substitute Lesley Ugochukwu’s speculative shot on the hour cannoning in off Bednarek, who was at fault for Forest’s second, which was a tragicomedy from a Saints perspective.
