Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 Nottingham Forest (7 Apr, 2024) Game Analysis - ESPN (UK)

Last modified: April 8, 2024, at 3:08 in the morning.

On Sunday, Tottenham Hotspur secured a vital victory over Nottingham Forest, who are fighting to avoid relegation. The 3-1 win at home has strengthened Tottenham's chances of qualifying for the Champions League. Their position in the Premier League has now improved to fourth place.

In the second half of the game, Micky van de Ven and Pedro Porro scored goals for Spurs. Earlier, Forest's Chris Wood had equalized Murillo's own goal. This helped the Spurs team to take advantage of their rivals Aston Villa and Manchester United failing to gather points this weekend.

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Tottenham's win brings them to the same total points as Villa at 60, but they have one extra game to play. Meanwhile, United falls behind with only 49 points following their tie with Liverpool, which ended in a 2-2 score.

The manager of the Spurs team, Ange Postecoglou, expressed to journalists that he is not concerned about the competition for fourth place. His focus is solely on the improvements his team is making.

Tottenham took the lead within the first quarter of the game. Murillo, a player from Brazil, had just attempted an impressive goal from his team's half, but was unsuccessful. Moments later, he accidentally put the ball into his own team's goal after Timo Werner passed it towards him.

Brennan Johnson almost scored a second goal for his current team against his previous one. However, the goalkeeper Matz Sels managed to block Johnson's shot with a powerful hand.

The Spurs team was dominating the game and it seemed like they were going to score their second goal very soon. However, unexpectedly, Forest scored a goal in the 27th minute through Wood who had already scored four goals in the previous four games.

The football player from New Zealand should've scored a second goal before halftime, but unfortunately hit the post from a short distance.

Forest believed that it was fair for Spurs to have a player sent off before halftime as James Maddison seemed to have hit Ryan Yates without the ball. However, VAR chose not to get involved.

Forest manager Nuno Espirito Santo spoke to the reporters and said that it was clear that the player punched the other player, despite appearances. Nuno was surprised that the VAR did not suggest the referee Simon Hooper review the incident. Nuno mentioned that in his opinion, Maddison lost his cool and delivered a punch in the stomach. Although Nuno respects the referee, he believes that the incident should have been reviewed.

Postecoglou made changes to his midfield during halftime. He swapped out Yves Bissouma and Pape Matar Sarr and brought in Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur. This clever double substitution helped Spurs regain their dominant position over the game.

Postecoglou commented that he believed they veered off course towards the latter part of the initial half, but he was impressed with their amazing response as they completely controlled the second half.

The Dutch defender van de Ven made a powerful strike from the outer part of the penalty box to regain the lead for the Spurs team. This happened 52 minutes into the game when Pedro Porro's impressive finish followed just six minutes later.

Forest's loss places them in 17th position with a total of 25 points, having played 32 matches. They are currently only ahead of third-to-last place Luton Town by goal difference.