Nottingham Forest have now suffered their fourth straight defeat in a row at the hands of Sheffield Wednesday at the City Ground. Kieran Lee bundled the ball in at the end of the first half to give the Owls an undeserved lead. Chris Maguire then capitalized on some poor defending at the start of the second half to put the game beyond reach for Forest.
Stuart Pearce had made two loan signings during the week in the form of Todd Kane and Gary Gardner. Kane went straight into the starting eleven for this match whilst Gardner settled for a place on the bench. Kane had a lively start and showed early signs of promise of being a very good right back and was linking up well with Chris Burke on that right hand side. Sheffield Wednesday looked like they were going to take the lead when Maghoma ran through on goal after some poor defending but Jamaal Lascelles came up with a fantastic last ditch challenge just before he pulled the trigger. Chris Burke had the ball kindly fall to him on the edge of the box but he could only put this half chance high and wide of the mark. Forest looked to be building up momentum with both Assombalonga and Antonio having bright moments. Forest continued to push up the park and won quite a few corners. One of them Westwood had to be alert to prevent Tesche from turning the ball into the back of the net. Then came the sucker punch as Sheffield Wednesday took the lead just before half time and totally against the run of play. Nuhiu had his header blocked on the line by debutant Todd Kane, but Forest could do nothing to prevent Kieran Lee bundling home the rebound to take Sheffield Wednesday into the break 1-0 up.
The second half started in disastrous fashion for Forest as Wednesday soon took a 2-0 lead on around the 50th minute mark. Chris Maguire capitalized on some dreadful Forest defending to smash Wednesday 2-0 up from around ten yards out. Then came a period in the game where Forest seemed to completely fall apart. Wednesday had a couple of huge chances to maybe go around 5-0 up and embarrass Forest, but weren't clinical enough to do so. Nuhiu had a great chance to enhance the misery for Forest but his volley went just wide. Jamaal Lascelles also did well to prevent Wednesday scoring again when he blocked a shot which looked certain to destine in the back of the net. Forest never looked like getting back into the game but Jamie Paterson did have a good effort saved in the latter stages of the game.
Overall, this was a disappointing day for Forest. Not just the result, but the way the season seems to be going. The play-offs now seem out of reach unless Forest were able to go on a considerable winning streak which seems unlikely. Relegation seems to be more of a possibility than promotion now this season and it is up to Pearce to now get this season back on track because the players clearly aren't performing to their potential at this moment in time.
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