Yusuf Akhamrich’s second-half goal gave our Under-21s a slender home win over Nottingham Forest at Hotspur Way on Saturday afternoon.
The attacking midfielder had seen a handful of earlier shots blocked as we searched for a way through in what was our first-ever Premier League 2 meeting with the men from the City Ground.
But he timed his run to perfection to fire home the game’s only goal following good work in the build-up from Luca Williams-Barnett and Reiss Russell-Denny, with some solid defending ensuring Wayne Burnett’s side made a deserved return to winning ways after a cagey contest in Enfield.
With a Premier League Cup semi-final between the sides in 2023/24 representing the only other time we’ve faced Forest’s Under-21s competitively in recent years, it was a rare fresh opponent for us, although we had to be patient in pursuit of a breakthrough. Williams-Barnett fired wide while we saw a handful of shots blocked in the Forest box over the course of the first half, Tynan Thompson stinging the palms of goalkeeper Luke Campbell and Russell-Denny also firing straight at the visiting custodian from distance in the run-up to the interval.
Forest were a bit more of an attacking threat in the second period, Lamin Sillah’s header from a corner cleared from inside the six-yard by Russell-Denny. However, we finally managed to break Forest’s resistance with a well-worked goal in the 66th minute. Williams-Barnett surged forward into space from inside our own half and shifted the ball right to Russell-Denny, who produced a trademark pinpoint pass from deep for Akhamrich to run onto on the overlap with perfect timing to drill past Campbell from a tight angle.
Both of our centre-halves made big blocks as Forest tried to respond, Jun’ai Byfield deflecting Fuad Smith’s effort over the bar while Malachi Hardy crucially got in the way of Sillah’s drive following a cut-back from the left by Jamie Newton. A steady flow of changes in the closing moments helped us to see out the game, as we registered our second win of the campaign heading into the international break.
‘The timing was excellent, the pass was excellent’
Coach Wayne praised his players for their first-half performance in particular, while he was also pleased with the manner of the goal. He told us: “I felt in the first half we were very good – our football was excellent, we got into some dangerous positions and we were really pleased with the high-energy and clever play on show. In the second half it was a bit more difficult and we couldn’t find the solutions we needed to. Credit to Nottingham Forest – they came with intensity – but we couldn’t find the solutions and perform as well as we did in the first half.”
Describing the goal, Wayne continued: “It was really good work from Luca to drive forward, he played it across to Reiss and he found Yusuf – the timing was excellent, the pass was excellent and it was a very good goal. From our point of view as well, it was pleasing to keep a clean sheet, having not managed to do that in our first three games of the season. That’s something we spoke about and were keen to achieve, so it was pleasing that we managed to do that today.”