There was a moment during the first half when Roy Hodgson – taking charge of his 400th Premier League match – stood on the touchline simply shaking his head. The Crystal Palace manager had just seen yet another of his players succumb to an injury after a week in which three more, including Eberechi Eze, were ruled out of this meeting with Nottingham Forest.
But while it was Steve Cooper’s visitors who created the better chances and could have taken all three points had a brilliant lob from Morgan Gibbs-White not come back off a post, you can always rely on teams managed by Hodgson to keep fighting. The result was a second successive home stalemate and three clean sheets in a row, although new problems for the midfielders Jeffrey Schlupp and Jaïro Riedewald, both of whom had to be substituted, did not go down well with their manager.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it,” Hodgson said. “But in the circumstances, I’m satisfied with the point – the team was very resilient it was the kind of game that would have been easy to lose.”
Forest, who enjoyed a rare away victory on their last visit to London against Chelsea last month, had to make do without their main source of goals after Taiwo Awoniyi picked up a groin injury that Cooper confirmed before kick-off could keep the Nigeria striker out for a month. Awoniyi was badly missed but Gibbs-White’s would-be goal of the season contendereffort and then a mesmerising run from the Brazilian defender Murillo that would have been a goal of the season contender almost provided the inspiration they were looking for.
“That will catch the attention of course,” Cooper said. “I wish he scored, but maybe that is next. He is a talent, we won’t get carried away with him but he will help the team grow.”
The extent of Palace’s injury problems had been laid bare on Friday when Hodgson arrived at the pre-match press conference with an A4 piece of paper listing all of his unavailable players. But after the news that Cheick Doucouré had joined the chief creators, Eze and Michael Olise, in being sidelined by a hamstring injury, at least the top scorer, Odsonne Édouard, was back to lead the line with Riedewald handed his first Premier League start in more than two years. Riedewald, a Netherlands international signed during Frank de Boer’s brief tenure, has made a little over 30 Premier League starts in seven seasons in south London but was a steadying presence in midfield before his forced withdrawal.
A thunderbolt from Harry Toffolo, also making his first league start of the season, produced the first notable moment after 15 minutes as Sam Johnstone was called into action. The Palace goalkeeper looked in trouble when Gibbs-White raced on to a brilliant long ball from Murillo and executed the lob almost perfectly, only for the ball to bounce back into Johnstone’s grateful arms.
Any relief Hodgson may have felt was short-lived, however, when Schlupp was forced off midway through the half by injury and the exasperated former England manager kicked the ground in frustration.
A Jordan Ayew volley that sailed way over the crossbar did not do much to improve his mood, although a couple of promising runs from Schlupp’s replacement, Jesurun Rak-Sakyi, at least gave the home fans something to get excited about before Toffolo blocked the 21-year-old’s goalbound volley.
Murillo’s big moment left Marc Guéhi on his backside courtesy of a brilliant stepover after the 21-year-old had already beaten three players but Johnstone was equal to his shot.
Palace then needed Guéhi to block the substitute Gonzalo Montiel’s effort at the back post after he had been picked out by Toffolo’s cross before Murillo headed over from the resulting corner. Jean-Philippe Mateta was then inches away from breaking the deadlock after a lovely move from Palace was started by Tyrick Mitchell but the striker could not provide the finish.
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It needed an excellent block from Joachim Andersen to deny Montiel with a long-range volley. Meanwhile, Palace huffed and puffed but could not create another clearcut opportunity to banish their injury blues.
