NOTTINGHAM FOREST OPENED the door to a surprise Premier League title challenge after a sixth win in a row with a 3-0 victory at Wolves.
A brilliant season under Nuno Espirito Santo continued at Molineux thanks to first-half goals from Morgan Gibbs-White and Chris Wood and Taiwo Awoniyi’s strike at the death.
It meant they racked up six top-flight wins for the first time since 1979 when Brian Clough was in charge – a fitting achievement as Monday marked 50 years since the Forest great was appointed at the City Ground.
Nuno could be about to rekindle the magic Clough produced as Forest moved six points behind leaders Liverpool, who visit the City Ground next week in a clash which could decide whether they really are title contenders.
Moments after being goaded by the Wolves fans, Gibbs-White shut them up in the best possible way by scoring in front of the home end in just the seventh minute.
Elliot Anderson set Gibbs-White free to break at pace, he played in Anthony Elanga and got the ball back to sweep home from 14 yards, with the aid of a slight deflection.
Forest doubled their lead in the 44th minute. Hudson-Odoi made it, skinning Matt Doherty on the left and cutting back to Wood, who swept home into an empty net for his 12th of the season. Awoniyi made it 3-0 with the final act, tapping in from James Ward-Prowse’s tee up.
Ireland defender Mark McGuinness was on the scoresheet as Luton Town lost 2-1 to QPR in the Championship tonight.
Morgan Fox’s lucky goal secured a fifth straight home win for QPR and condemned Luton to a 10th consecutive away defeat.
Fox did not know much about his second-half winner after a wayward shot from Ilias Chair deflected off him and flew into the net to seal a 2-1 victory.
Michael Frey had put Rangers ahead midway through the first half but McGuinnness hauled Luton level on the stroke of half-time, when he glanced a header beyond Rangers keeper Paul Nardi from a Zack Nelson corner.
Real Madrid through to the Copa del Rey last 16 with a comfortable 5-0 victory at fourth-tier minnows Deportivo Minera on Monday.
Federico Valverde, Eduardo Camavinga, Arda Guler struck in the first half for the dominant Spanish champions. Veteran Luka Modric netted the fourth before Guler tapped in his second to round off the rout.
Coach Carlo Ancelotti rested several key players ahead of the Spanish Super Cup starting in Saudi Arabia later this week, with Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior only appearing as second-half substitutes.
Tammy Abraham grabbed a late winner as AC Milan came from two goals down to beat defending champions Inter Milan 3-2 and lift the Italian Super Cup trophy in Riyadh on Monday.
Inter looked on course for a fourth consecutive trophy in the tournament after goals from Lautaro Martinez and and Mehdi Taremi either side of the break in Saudi Arabia.
But in a repeat of their 2-1 come-from-behind win against Juventus in the semi-final Milan returned transformed after the break.
To add to the Inter’s woes the reigning Serie A champions lost Hakan Calhanoglu to a muscular injury just after half an hour with Kristjan Asllani coming on in place of the Turkish midfielder.
Theo Hernandez revived AC Milan hopes with a free kick after 52 minutes as they chased a first trophy under new coach Sergio Conceicao.
US winger Christian Pulisic grabbed the equaliser with 10 minutes to go with English forward Abraham sealing the winner after 93 minutes to give his side the trophy for the eighth time and first since 2016.
- Additional reporting by AFP
Dundalk is everything i love about football. A team who runs on the dedication of volunteers, a team who gets f all support from the fai can go off and more then hold their own in europe. If everbody who goes to England to watch the prem could go down to their local loi team even just once a season it would make such a difference. But then when i see that dundalk won the equivalent of 3 loi titles or john Delaneys wages it make me so angry. That man is a clown and needs to go
I still haven’t seen one fact that supports this mob against Delaney. As a policy they invest in grassroots football to hopefully raise the game as a while. Not put money into LOI clubs that can’t reach the heights will give a return on investment. Well done Dundalk but the CEO of the national football association should be on 6 figures.
@James Darcy: Wait a minute – James Darcy, John Delaney… JD…. John is that you!?
@James Darcy: the CEO of a minor footballing nation should not be on the same as the combined salaries of the Italian and French FA’s, as much as the President of America and double what an Taoiseach is paid. Get real lad.
JD, so improve the grass roots so we can send better players to England?
@Hoofedup Bravo:
The grass roots in FAI parlance are a few very strong mainly Dublin underage league teams like Home Farm, St Kevin’s, to them the LOI is an obstruction, these clubs should be feeder clubs as happens in every other properly run league.
This causes another issue Dundalk earned 3 times last night in one match than they would do over a series of games in a hole season, this makes no sense. Dundalk are financially better drawing one of there last group games than trying to win there remaining matches in LOI. With such a setup up how can in Delany’s words “the problem child” expand and improve what Dundalk have achieved is incredible and against all odds.
Well spotted Billy!
few tickets for the replay there John . oh James :)
Hopefully Dundalk with all this money can set up a new football association called the AFI (Association Football Ireland) and we can see the end of that toxic money grabbing crowd once and for all.
@Padraig: now that’s a good idea.
Stick that up your hole John Delaney!
Equal to how much John Delaney earns a year
He’s 100% going to use this success to justify a hefty bonus this year.
I grew up supporting (and still do) my local club Tranmere Rovers. We live in the shadow of the Liverpool and Everton giants and even our ground is enclosed by houses proudly displaying red or blue colours despite their proximity to Prenton Park. Our average attendance is less than 5,000, peanuts in comparison to the volume of local football fans. It means I have a real sense of pride when my club achieves something against all these odds, even if they are few and far between. A loss is greeted with a shrug, a victory with joy. Bigger clubs shrug after a win because 3 points is expected, no less. I’m sure I get more pleasure following a perennial underdog than fans of the superclubs. I hope the real Dundalk fans are basking in every minute of their success and, more importantly, I hope football fans in the local area switch their sights from the English giants to their local club doing their town proud.
Who cares about the money? An Irish team is competing in Europe toe to toe with their opponents.
@Stephen Mcevoy, your are right, I walked round the town this morning and the place is buzzing.
Up dundalk from waterford
Quarter final at the very least
An incredible achievement for a team from this small Republic. It puts LOI football on the map. They deserve to be bursting with pride.
@Leo Lowe:as long as your sectarian club Linfield gets favourable treatment by the IFA,including Linfield supporting referees appointed to referee Linfield matches soccer in the colony will remain in the backwaters,the domain of bigots from loyalist housing estates.
@Juan Franc: LOI and IL fans put all that sectarian nonsense long behind them as demonstrated during the Setanta cup. Only the bar-stoolers think such hatred still exists. LOI fans leave that nonsense to the 2 ugly sisters of Scottish football.
@Juan Franc: It is very sad to read such comments, particularly when clubs have been striving to eliminate sectarianism and racism.
@Padraic Reid: He obviously doesn’t attend any games either. When LOI travelled up to Belfast for the games with Linfield they were welcomed with open arms and both enjoyed pints together, same when the Linfield lads came down south.
So basically John Delaney would need one win a year in Europe to pay his salary. That’s good to know
So much to admire about Dundalk. Just hope Cork can pip them
Oops cut off… But they are a shining example to LOI clubs.
Zenit will leather them unfortunately
@Minom Pnom: Zenit were 3-0 down to Maccabi until the 82 minute and only got a 95th minute winner by chance