Wasteful Forest held by Ipswich amid VAR controversy
Nottingham Forest's woes in front of goal continued as they were held to a 1-1 draw at Ipswich despite dominating the game.
Report and free match highlights as Issa Diop controversially survives a red card after a VAR review for a last-man challenge on James McAtee; Julio Enciso cancelled out Neco Williams' opening goal
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Nottingham Forest's woes in front of goal continued as they were held to a 1-1 draw at Ipswich despite dominating the game.
Forest were guilty of squandering a hatful of chances as they created 2.31 worth of expected goals and won the shot count 17-7 but only had Neco Williams' first-half goal to show for their big volume.
That lead was cancelled out just before the break by Julio Enciso after a mistake from Nikola Milenkovic.
Forest were also aggrieved that Issa Diop survived a red card after the Ipswich defender was shown just a yellow card after referee Thomas Bramall was sent to the pitchside monitor by VAR to check the defender's tackle on James McAtee for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.
Leif Davis twice cleared off the line for Ipswich while Liam Delap and Callum Hudson-Odoi both were very wasteful in front of goal.
Delap's big moment arrived against his former club on 74 minutes but he headed over after Abdoul Ouattara's miscued clearance and then sent a 30-yard piledriver fractionally wide.
Forest lost Williams to a worrying arm injury minutes later and there was still time for Hudson-Odoi to drill wide for the visitors before Ipswich substitute Jack Clarke fired off target to ensure the spoils were shared.
No team have underperformed their expected goals data more than Forest this season, scoring just six times from 13.4 worth of chances created. It leaves them with just one win from their eight games.
Ipswich now have as many points at Portman Road in the Premier League this season as they managed in the entirety of their previous campaign in 2024/25 (7).
Diop was shown a yellow card after referee Thomas Bramall was sent to the pitchside monitor by VAR to check the defender's tackle on McAtee as denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.
Bramall announced to the crowd: "After review, there is a foul by Ipswich No.6. However, because the player knocks it to the right side of the goal, the final decision is direct free-kick and a yellow card to No.6".
Former Forest boss Steve Cooper said on Sky Sports : "There's a failing in this - [the referee] should have given a free-kick straight away. It was as clear a free-kick as probably there was in the whole game.
"The red card will split decision. Forest fans and staff and players will feel hard done by but if it had gone against Ipswich, they would definitely have felt hard done by."
"We've had so many good performances. Again tonight, I felt like we had a lot of chances. We should have won the game.
"As long as we keep performing like this, the wins are going to have to come.
"This is the question we've been asking ourselves in training every week. We've been doing shooting drills and everything. If you could see how we were shooting yesterday, it was top.
"Unfortunately they couldn't go in today. It's not good enough but I'm proud of the boys for continuing to keep going and keeping performances high."
