Nottingham Forest lost 4-3 at Newcastle as the club’s hopes of Champions League football took a major hit at St James’ Park.
Forest are still finely poised in the mix to secure some kind of European football. However, the walls are closing in around them now with teams starting to gain ground on the current top five.
VAR reared from the shadows once again to provide a detriment to Forest. Peter Bankes intervened to get Jarrod Gillett to overturn a penalty for handball against Ola Aina with Alexander Isak making the score 3-1.
Ultimately, the Reds weren’t at their best. Conceding four goals in 11 minutes is unacceptable and resembled the Forest of old that were so often blown away under Steve Cooper when he was in charge.
Despite this latest setback, there were still some positives. Andy Hinchliffe praised Murillo for his efforts during the 90 minutes and on another day Forest might have come back and taken something from the match.
Harry Toffolo reacts to performance of Forest star vs Newcastle
Toffolo was a surprise inclusion on the bench for the Forest trip to Newcastle yesterday. He didn’t get on the pitch but it proves that he’s still an influential figure inside the dressing room.
Forest were beaten inside 11 minutes in the opening 45 minutes. Defensively the team were all over the place and hopefully, they have learned from the capitulation ahead of the next challenges that lie in waiting.
After the game, Murillo reacted on Instagram with a wordless post. He posted a montage of images of him from the game against Newcastle with an emoji of a brain.
Toffolo was the first player to respond to Murillo’s post. He is a leader of men behind the scenes for Forest and although he might leave in the summer, he’s definitely got a role to play right now.
He replied to Murillo’s post with the word ‘boss’ and it’s clear that the Forest players value just how good Murillo has been this season during a meteoric rise up the division by the Reds.
Murillo stats vs Newcastle
As far as positives go, Murillo was probably one of them. He did his job relatively well and tried his level best to get in the way of things the best he could.
The Brazilian typically wears his heart on his sleeve and that didn’t change here with his second-half performance largely very good from a defensive point of view.
| Murillo stats vs Newcastle | Total |
| Minutes | 90 |
| Clearances | 5 |
| Tackles | 3 |
| Blocks | 3 |
| Pass Accuracy | 72.6% |
Whatever happens this season, Forest might struggle to keep hold of Murillo. He’s already been on the radar of many big clubs and they are likely to come calling this summer.
Right now, however, Murillo has a big part to play on Trentside and hopefully, he can continue his fine form and lead Forest to a truly memorable campaign.
Receive a digest of our best Nottingham Forest content each week direct to your mailbox
