Nottingham Forest failed to make it three wins in a row in the Championship as they fell to a 2-1 defeat to Birmingham City at St Andrews. David Cotterill gave the Blues the lead. This was cancelled out by a second half goal from the Championship's top scorer Britt Assombalonga but Paul Caddis secured the three points for Birmingham late on by converting a controversial penalty.
Forest came out of the blocks looking the better team in the early stages. Michail Antonio went on one of his runs down the line that Forest fans have become so used to seeing. Antonio then delivered in a very inviting cross into the danger area, but no one in Forest colours could connect to put Forest 1-0 ahead. Forest's good start counted for nothing a couple of minutes later as David Cotterill put Birmingham 1-0 up with a superb left footed strike in to the top corner of the net. Karl Darlow was left helpless in the Forest goal as it went in off the underside of the bar. Birmingham could have found themselves 2-0 up soon after as young star Demarai Gray played through Clayton Donaldson for a great chance, but Darlow made himself big to tip the shot over the crossbar. Britt Assombalonga then had a few chances to level the scores at 1-1. He first had a chance from a Ben Osborn corner as he headed the ball over the crossbar when he maybe could have done better with the effort. He then attempted what was a very ambitious long range shot on the counter attack when he perhaps should have passed to continue what was looking like a very promising counter attack for Forest. Birmingham then almost had a huge stroke of luck as Paul Caddis had a shot which took a huge deflection off Danny Fox and almost caught Darlow off guard as it crashed against the crossbar. Forest were very lucky not to find themselves 2-0 down. Chris Burke was playing for the first time against his former club and had a good low shot saved comfortably by Randolph. This then signaled the end of the first half, with Forest having considerable chances but not performing as well as they had at Wolves just a week ago.
Matty Fryatt was influential in that victory at Molineux and he did some good work again setting up Henri Lansbury who's wild shot was a long way off target. Chris Burke got substituted after 63 minutes and was replaced by Jamie Paterson who played well in his short stint at Wolves. Forest then went to three at the back, in an attempt to get back into the game, a very similar formation to which worked against Norwich a couple of weeks ago. Jamaal Lascelles almost made a costly error as his slip allowed Clayton Donaldson to run at the Forest defence but Darlow stood up strong again to deny the striker for the second time in the match. Michail Antonio then had a chance to equalize for Forest as he received the ball in the box but his shot was hit right at Randolph. Forest then found a precious equalizer soon after as Jamie Paterson flicked on Eric Lichaj's cross from the right hand side and Britt Assombalonga was there to head home his 12th goal of the season so far. Assombalonga did however appear to be offside as the ball was flicked on by Paterson, much to the displeasure of the Birmingham players. Then came the big talking point in the game, Morrison headed the ball towards the Forest goal and Britt Assombalonga appeared to handball it on the line. However, the referee nor the linesman saw the incident and were both happy to give a corner. The fourth official then called over the referee stating it was a penalty even though he was stood at least 50 yards away from the action. The referee then took his word for it and gave the penalty and also sent off Assombalonga in the process for deliberate handball. Paul Caddis then stepped up to take the penalty and had the nerve to convert it into the bottom right hand corner under huge pressure. Tom Ince then had a great chance to equalize for Forest to make it 2-2 at the end of the match but his effort was cleared off the line.
Overall, this wasn't a particularly bad performance from Forest, they just lost in what was very unfortunate circumstances. Forest should have come back from St Andrews with at least a point and if the controversial penalty hadn't been given to Birmingham, I wouldn't have been surprised to see them go on to secure all three points. The biggest blow to Forest is the one match suspension to Britt Assombalonga who will now miss the game against Charlton on Saturday. Any team is going to miss a player of his quality considering he is the Championship's top goal scorer. I think Pearce should continue to play with this team and formation as I think it will get wins regularly in the Championship and take us into at least the play-off places very soon.
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