Nottingham Forest will enter next month’s transfer window with a mixture of hope and trepidation after one of the players responsible for helping them reach the Premier League left Sean Dyche’s side mired in trouble at the wrong end of the table.
James Garner, a member of the squad which achieved promotion from the Championship three years ago, excelled on his return to the City Ground with a goal and an assist for Thierno Barry as Everton ended a run of three games without a win and boosted their European hopes in the process.
Forest’s performance laid bare both the potential Dyche inherited after being appointed earlier this term and the issues he must address in order to steer his team to safety.
Against opponents he managed for 84 games before being unceremoniously dismissed, the 54-year-old watched Forest enjoy plenty of the ball and promising field position.
But unlike Everton, whose game management and ruthlessness proved crucial, they failed to make either pay. An influx of new faces could replenish their diminishing reserves of confidence. However, with Manchester United circling the influential Elliot Anderson, Dyche knows more disappointing results will provide further encouragement for Ruben Amorim in his pursuit of the Forest talisman and England midfielder.
Moyes spent the first-half in a perpetual state of angst, protesting against every decision made by the match officials and his own players alike. Not even Garner’s clinical finish, which handed the visitors the lead, could disguise the Scot’s displeasure at aspects of their performance as Forest continued to look more threatening despite falling behind.
James Garner opened the scoring for Everton as he returned to face his former side
Thierno Barry hit his second Premier League goal since his £27million summer arrival
Everton move up to eighth while Nottingham Forest languish in 17th going into January
Ensuring positive passages of play translate into a scoreboard advantage is one of the problems Dyche must solve in order to help Forest drag themselves away from the relegation zone. Omari Hutchinson produced flashes of skill but little end product. The same could be said of Morgan Gibbs-White whose lapse in concentration at the other end of the field allowed Garner to collect Dwight McNeil’s slide-rule pass and drive an angled shot past John Victor and into the bottom corner of the net.
With James Tarkowski commanding at the heart of Everton’s rearguard, Forest needed to be ruthless when opportunities presented themselves. However, on one of the rare occasions Gibbs-White escaped the centre-half’s clutches, he nodded a glancing header off target after Igor Jesus had fluffed his lines from close range.
Those misses proved costly when Barry, after finding Garner with a crossfield pass, swept forward and converted in emphatic fashion after receiving the ball back.
