Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper believes his side are heading in the right direction despite their trip to Crystal Palace ending in a “disappointing” goalless draw.
Cooper’s men had their chances at Selhurst Park, where Morgan Gibbs-White saw a shot come back off a post and a sprightly Murillo was denied more than once by Eagles goalkeeper Sam Johnstone.
In the end, it was a closer result than some had perhaps expected from a Palace squad that, already mired in an injury crisis, saw both Jeffrey Schlupp and Jairo Riedewald forced off either side of half-time.
Cooper said: “We’re definitely the team that, if anyone deserved to win it was us. That was clear, with the chances in the game, so there’s a little feeling of disappointment in the dressing room for sure, but also knowing that performances and results like this last year were so hard to come by.
“So the fact that we looked like that tonight and the way we have played means that beyond the small disappointment of not winning, we see a team that’s growing and hopefully on an upward trajectory.
“I have to bear that in mind. We want to be winning games, especially when we have chances like we did tonight, how we played in the first half and how we ended the game.
“But I think we’ve also got to respect that we kept a clean sheet, and for us to play like that I think is something that overall will be a real positive.”
Roy Hodgson, who managed his 400th Premier League contest on Saturday, admitted he has rarely, if ever, experienced an injury crisis quite like the one plaguing the Eagles.
Having already been forced to make three changes to his line-up from Palace’s 1-0 victory over Manchester United due to injuries to Eberechi Eze, Joel Ward and Cheick Doucoure, the 76-year-old was forced into two more on Saturday evening.
As Schlupp hobbled off the pitch, Hodgson elected to bring on 21-year-old Jesurun Rak-Sakyi, who before the Forest encounter had played just nine Premier League minutes for Palace.
Rak-Sakyi, who had a disappointing Carabao Cup outing at Old Trafford last week, was a silver lining for Palace and received a warm reception from the home support after he delivered dangerous crosses into the area and tried twice to hand his side an opener.
Ultimately neither side could take advantage of what few chances they had created, but the Palace boss was full of praise for his young substitute, who returned from a loan spell at Charlton at the end of last season.
Hodgson, who compared Rak-Sakyi to the injured Michael Olise, said: “I was delighted for him. There were a lot of clubs interested in taking him again.
“I had to fight with him a little bit to persuade him that if he really wants to be a Premier League player he is in the best place and chances will come, and today he got that chance and I think he took it extremely well.
“He didn’t just do well on the ball, he also did his defensive work. Of course when you’ve got wingers, talented wingers, that is one of the things you ask questions about: is he going to be good on the ball for those few moments he’s got it, but also what is he going to be like when we’re working hard to stop them doing something with it?”
'I will keep fighting' - Ten Hag adamant he is the right manager for Man Utd
Erik ten Hag insists that he is the right man for the job at Manchester United despite their 4-0 thrashing at the hands of Crystal Palace on Monday.
Michael Olise netted twice against a sorry United team at Selhurst Park, with Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell also getting on the scoresheet.
It is the first time that Palace have done the double over the Red Devils in the Premier League, as United extended their winless run on the road to five games.
There has been a lot of speculation over Ten Hag’s future following a disappointing second campaign in charge, with just one year left on his contract.
Asked if he was the right manager for United, he told Sky Sports: "Absolutely. If the right players are there and available, we have a good squad, but are missing the whole backline – we had problems.
"I will keep fighting. I prepared the team in the best way I could do. It was not good enough, by far – I have to take responsibility for that. But I will find energy and prepare them for Sunday’s game.
"At the end of the day, I have to do it with the players who are available. All season, we have huge [injury] problems. Many times we have sorted it out. Today we didn’t."
United have struggled with injury problems all season, with Harry Maguire and club captain Bruno Fernandes joining the lengthy list of players missing against Palace.
Ten Hag highlighted the lack of defensive options at his disposal but did not make excuses for the poor performance, adding: "It’s clear and obvious – this is underperforming. It’s not good enough. We are very disappointed in this. Our fans were behind us all the way – we should have kept fighting like the fans did.
"There are always reasons. Everyone sees our backline, we have huge problems, but at the end of the day we have to deal with it – we should have done better than we did.
"We know [how damaging it could be], but we have nine points to play, so we have to fight for the nine points."
Man Utd thrashing a 'big statement' but Palace are not surprised, says Eze
Eberechi Eze says Crystal Palace's 4-0 thrashing of Manchester United is a "big statement" but insists there should be little surprise that it happened.
Micheal Olise scored twice as Palace ran riot against the sorry Red Devils at Selhurst Park on Monday.
Jean-Philippe Mateta and Tyrick Mitchell also got in on the act as Palace sealed their first league double over United.
Palace have now won four of their last five Premier League games, with Oliver Glasner having turned the tide in the past few weeks.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Eze said: "It says a lot, it's a big statement, but we're not surprised.
"We know what we're capable of, we know what we can do. The quality we've got in the dressing room is high – we don't see it as a surprise. We know what we came here to do today, it worked.
"You can see we’re creating chances, we're not worried about what's going on behind us. We're attacking, pressing, we're aggressive – we're going to continue to create chances for sure."
Also speaking to Sky Sports, Glasner said: "Congratulations to the team. I think in the first half, we didn't play as well as we could, but we were very efficient and scored very nice goals.
"At half-time, we made some adaptations, and the second half was much better. We created a lot of chances, scored some nice goals, and it's a great win.
"We know we have quality when we get our players in situations to score a goal.
"Good players, a good team spirit, but we must always stay humble. It's not so long ago we were struggling [in a relegation battle]. We are doing well, but we have a lot to improve."
This was Palace's biggest Premier League win since beating Leeds United 5-1 in April 2023, while it also marked their biggest on home soil in the competition since a 5-0 victory over Leicester City in April 2018.
Udinese 1-1 Napoli: Struggling Bianconeri grab last-gasp home draw
Napoli were held to a 1-1 draw at relegation-battling Udinese in Serie A on Monday after a stoppage-time goal by forward Isaac Success cancelled out a Victor Osimhen header.
Osimhen nodded home to give Napoli the lead in the 51st minute after Matteo Politano sent a lofted cross from the right into the middle of the box, and the Nigerian striker headed the ball in off the left post.
The Nigerian thought he doubled their advantage in the 80th minute, but his effort was ruled out for offside, before Success bundled in the leveller in stoppage time, netting from a Thomas Kristensen header.
Napoli moved up to eighth on 51 points from 35 games and are nine points behind both fifth-placed Atalanta and Roma, in sixth.
Data Debrief:
Osimhen is the third Napoli player to score in six matches in a row against a single team in Serie A in the three-points-for-a-win era, after Gonzalo Higuain against Lazio between 2013 and 2016 and Dries Mertens against Bologna between 2016 and 2019.
Despite fighting back to earn a point, Udinese have now failed to win three games under a new manager for the first time since August-September 2010 under Francesco Guidolin.
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