Nottingham Forest moved out of the relegation zone on goal difference with a 0-0 draw at home to Fulham, but head coach Vitor Pereira remains winless from his four Premier League games in charge.
Forest had dropped into the bottom three on Saturday evening after West Ham earned an unlikely point against Manchester City. However, they swapped places again less than 24 hours later, following a low-quality stalemate at the City Ground.
Dan Ndoye appeared to have given the hosts a priceless lead midway through the second half when he raced through and slotted past Bernd Leno, but the goal was ruled out for offside following a VAR check.
Ndoye was introduced at half-time by Pereira, who has overseen just one win in his seven games in charge across all competitions. He made an immediate impact, winning a penalty from Calvin Bassey’s clumsy foul which was then overturned due to another offside call.
Pereira’s half-time changes – he also brought on Omari Hutchinson – made Forest more dangerous in attack, although it was right-back Ola Aina who went closest with a shot from the edge of the box that rattled the crossbar.
Fulham, in 11th, failed to have a shot on target despite centre-back Calvin Bassey forcing a superb save from Matz Sels in the first half – again though, that was adjudged to have been offside.
Rodrigo Muniz’s goalbound volley was crucially deflected behind by Aina in the second half before Sasa Lukic shot narrowly wide as both sides settled for a point.
Pereira: Relegation battle a marathon not a sprint
Nottingham Forest head coach Vitor Pereira told Sky Sports:
“Very happy with my players because we gave everything. Happy with our supporters because they tried to help us until the end.
“In my opinion, I said to them now, this is not a speed race, this is a marathon until the end and in our minds, because of course today was a chance to get three points, but the next game we have another chance to get three points.
“This is the spirit, it’s not because we play home or away. The spirit must be to win points and to fight, to compete to win the game.
“In football, sometimes the result is difficult to control. But what we do on the pitch, we can control. Or we give everything to win, or we show the spirit to win the game, or not. I’m happy with them and proud of them, because they did everything to win the game.
“I think it will be tough until the end. The decision, I believe, the decision will be at the end. I hope that we can get points before then to escape the relegation zone.
“Because the teams that are competing with us, Tottenham, West Ham, Leeds, they have good teams. And we need to, mentally, we need to be prepared to compete and to fight until the end.”
Story of the match in stats
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: skynews.com
