Marco Silva hails ‘great’ Nottingham Forest player despite losing to Fulham

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Nottingham Forest were uninspired in their 2-1 Premier League defeat to Fulham, with very few performances standing out in Nuno Espirito Santo’s side.

Forest lost to Fulham for the second time this season, with Marco Silva’s side becoming the first Premier League team to do the double over Forest so far this campaign.

Amongst the poor displays, Danilo was slammed by Forest fans for his performance in the middle of the park for Espirito Santo, who hooked the Brazilian midfielder off at halftime to bring Ibrahim Sangare on in his place.

The game was unlike Forest’s 5-0 loss to Bournemouth in that the performance delivered more of a dampening feeling to fans rather than a true inquest, a sentiment echoed by pundits as Dion Dublin expects business as usual for Forest after the Fulham loss.

It never seemed as though the Forest squad would pull off a win in the game, but one player clearly caught the eye of Silva in the Fulham dugout, as he made sure to give him a special mention in his post-match interview.

Marco Silva praises Chris Wood’s display against Fulham

Unsurprisingly, it was Chris Wood who got Forest’s equalising goal in the first half, latching on to a ball over the Fulham defence to place a shot into the bottom left corner.

This equaliser was never really capitalised on by Forest, though, giving Silva the positive result needed to give a nod to Wood when he perhaps wouldn’t have otherwise.

Speaking to BBC Sport, Silva said: “Football can be unpredictable but it was clear today that the best team on the pitch won. Until the 35th minute of the game we were leading 1-0 but it should have been 2-0 or 3-0. 

“Chris Wood scored with a great finish – he is on fire – but we controlled the game well. We showed the patience and created chances.

“One team creating, one team dominant, one team controlling. We had more chances to score a third than they did to equalise.”

Silva promised his side would dominate against Forest in his pre-match interview which clearly came true as his comments suggest that he wasn’t particularly impressed by what the Forest coaching staff put up against his Fulham side.

However, his praise for Wood was deserved, making Reds fans wonder just what could’ve been if the Kiwi international was more involved in the game.

Chris Wood took his only real chance of the game against Fulham

Remarkably, all three of Wood’s touches in the Fulham box came in the motion of his excellent equalising finish.

It was Wood’s only shot of the game too, showing how clinical he is but also emphasising a tinge of disappointment that his teammates couldn’t get the ball to him more.

This is shown equally well by Wood’s own passes into the final third, with only two completed highlighting that Anthony Elanga and the rest of Forest’s attacking support weren’t able to get close enough to Wood to allow for any attacking combinations to form.

Wood has the best conversion rate in the Premier League this season and Saturday’s performance showed it, giving hope to any downbeat Forest fans that the Fulham result can be a mere blip as long as Wood is able to feature more in next weekend’s trip to Newcastle.