Everton 0 – 2 Nottm Forest
Everton ended 2024 with their third home defeat of the season so far as Nottingham Forest’s remarkable run of form continued with a fairly comfortable victory at Goodison Park.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s side scored a goal a quarter of an hour into each half and rarely looked like conceding as the Blues mis-firing attack largely failed to lay a glove on their high-flying opponents despite Sean Dyche switching to two up front in the second half.
Armando Broja made his first start since joining on loan from Chelsea and looked lively but didn’t get a clear-cut opportunity to notch his first goal before being withdrawn with 15 minutes to go and his replacement, Beto, was the only Everton player to force a notable save from Matz Sels in the 90 minutes.
Having ground out three successive draws against Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City, Dyche mostly opted for continuity, with Ashley Young returning at right back and Broja coming in for Dominic Calvert-Lewin the only changes from the side that started at the Etihad Stadium on Boxing Day.
However, he was prompted to make a change at the halfway stage as Jack Harrison’s struggle for form continued but while Jesper Lindstrøm added more thrust and service down the right flank, the hosts couldn’t make a breakthrough to get back into the game.
With a bit more composure, Iliman Ndiaye might have put Everton ahead inside five minutes after his wonderful touch took him past Nikola Milenković but he ballooned his shot into the Park End while, at the other end, Chris Wood sounded two warning shots before he put Forest ahead.
First, the Kiwi striker volleyed wide and then glanced a header past the far post but when he nodded a ball over the top to Anthony Elanga and received it back from the winger, he calmly lobbed Jordan Pickford to make it 1-0.
Jarrad Branthwaite might have done better with a header from a free-kick, Broja could only steer one of his own off target and another onto the roof of the net before he flashed a shot wide late in the half as the Toffees huffed and puffed but couldn’t break the visitors down.
Instead, it was Forest who almost doubled their lead in first-half stoppage time when Ramon Sosa was put in by Morgan Gibbs-White but, thankfully, he lashed wide of goal.
Gibbs-White himself probably should have made it 2-0 seven minutes into the second half when he himself drove forward on goal but he miscued his shot badly while Lindstrøm’s attempted curler failed to bend back on goal and drifted behind.
Santo’s men eventually did kill the contest in the 61st minute and it came from a defensive mix-up between two of the Blues’ poorer performers on the day, James Tarkowski and Vitalii Mykolenko that allowed Wood to steal the loose ball.
He held it up to allow Gibbs-White to arrive in the box and after confidently turning Abdoulaye Doucouré, he tucked it past the stranded Pickford from near the penalty spot.
A treble-save by Pickford against Sosa kept it at 2-0 before Dyche withdrew Idrissa Gueye and Young in favour or Calvert-Lewin and Nathan Patterson and the young full-back almost weighed in with an assist when his low cross found Orel Mangala but the Belgian put his shot inches the wrong side of the near post.
Ndiaye volleyed a Calvert-Lewin knock-down wide before the substitute striker planted a routine header into Sels’ arms and glanced another effort off target and Beto forced the keeper into a diving parry to keep the Portuguese’s own header out.
The visitors almost rubbed salt into the wounds at the death when they cleared a free-kick at one end and raced away on the counter-attack but Pickford was on hand again to save first from Elanga and then Taiwo Awoniyi.