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These are concerning times for Vítor Pereira. Nottingham Forest’s fourth permanent manager of this crazy season may be only four matches into his spell in charge but – given owner Evangelos Marinakis’s record – his position is already looking precarious.
A second Premier League defeat in succession since he was appointed to replace Sean Dyche a fortnight ago leaves Forest sweating just two points clear of the drop zone and facing a daunting trip to Manchester City on Wednesday. They never looked like capitalising on West Ham’s heavy defeat against Liverpool on Saturday against a Brighton side packed with experience and who recorded their first home victory for two months thanks to goals from Diego Gómez and Danny Welbeck – his 10th of the season – to ease more of the pressure on Fabian Hürzeler.
But while this time the Brighton head coach left the pitch to cheers rather than boos, as his side now find themselves 11th in the table and looking upwards, Pereira must find a solution to Forest’s lethargy after a campaign when they have struggled to cope with the demands of European football. Matz Sels – the hero of their penalty shootout victory here in the FA Cup sixth round last season – was the only change from the team that faced Liverpool last week. He replaced the injured Stefan Ortega after a much-altered team survived a scare in the Europa League against Fenerbahce on Thursday.
They might have fancied their chances against a Brighton team that had failed to win any of their three previous matches here but steadied the ship with a priceless victory at Brentford last week to ease their own relegation concerns. Hürzeler stuck with the same side as James Milner made his 655th Premier League appearance after breaking the record last week. Up against Elliot Anderson, who is expected to start for England at this summer’s World Cup, the 40-year-old lasted almost the whole match and put in another composed performance that will only boost his hopes of being awarded another contract extension.
It took only six minutes for Gómez to open the scoring when he capitalised on two errors from Neco Williams, as the Wales defender failed to clear his lines and hammered past Sels from the edge of the area. Forest hit back with a brilliant goal that was created by Callum Hudson-Odoi’s clever dummy on the touchline to set Igor Jesus free. His pass picked out Gibbs-White and he unleashed an unstoppable shot past Bart Verbruggen.
But the Forest bench had barely stopped celebrating when they found themselves behind again to an equally incisive move. Welbeck applied the expert finish after Kaoru Mitoma’s cross was headed into the veteran striker’s path by Jack Hinshelwood at the back post.
It took an excellent save to deny Mitoma a third as Forest struggled to contain Brighton and certainly didn’t help themselves. A sloppy pass from Murillo inside his own half almost handed Welbeck his second before Anderson was correctly booked for diving at the other end as he attempted to hoodwink the referee, Andrew Madley. Hinshelwood tested Sels again with a diving header just before half-time and Pereira must have been grateful to only be trailing by one goal at the break.
With so many players on the wrong side of 30, Brighton have often struggled to match their intensity in the second half of games this season. But they seemed determined to finish the job off as Pascal Gross twice went close within five minutes of the restart, with a clever free-kick almost catching out Sels at his near post.
Forest were struggling to mount a response and one crossfield pass from Gibbs-White that sailed out of play summed up their frustrations. Pereira cut a frustrated figure as he watched with his arms folded on the touchline. There was always a chance they could rescue something as Brighton couldn’t quite kill the game off. Six minutes of added time were greeted by a roar from the Forest fans behind the goal but desperate blocks from Lewis Dunk and Jan Paul van Hecke after an almighty goalmouth scramble saw them home.
