Lewis Miley is blessed with the ability of seeing things half a second before other players and the Newcastle midfielder also possesses the happy knack of finding precisely the right word at the right moment.
“It was a hectic game,” said the 18‑year‑old, with typically nuanced understatement at the end of a sometimes error-strewn yet always thrilling encounter. Anyone doubting the determination of Eddie Howe and Nuno Espírito Santo to take their players on grand European tours next season will have revised such opinions after watching the wildly oscillating frenzy that unfolded on a cold Tyneside afternoon.
When the final whistle blew Howe’s fifth-placed team had closed the gap on Nuno’s Forest to three points and must have felt that Madrid, Milan, Munich and the rest of the Champions League staging posts had moved into sharper focus on the horizon. Much, though, remains alarmingly blurry about a chameleon side whose inconsistency means they veer regularly from brilliance to basic incompetence and back again.
After recovering from the concession of an early goal Newcastle showed off their most appealing colours before ultimately forfeiting so much concentration that they very nearly threw away a three-goal cushion as Forest threatened to snatch a draw at the death. By the end Howe’s defence looked like self-destructing at every visiting set piece.
If that was a testament to visiting resilience it also indicated that Newcastle remain in peril of being blown off course by the distraction of the Carabao Cup final against Liverpool next month.
They began as if their minds were already at Wembley.
When Callum Hudson-Odoi caught Jacob Murphy dithering on the ball in the wake of Tino Livramento’s poor throw-in, he pinched possession and proceeded to cut in from the left.
Once Hudson-Odoi realised Dan Burn’s giant frame was inadvertently serving as a sizeable screen, creating a blind spot in Nick Pope’s vision he whipped in a swerving, sixth-minute shot, beating the goalkeeper low at the near post.
Pope, recalled in place of Martin Dubravka, could hardly have wished for a worse Premier League return after evidently expecting to see his reflexes tested at the far post.
No matter. Forest were about to be felled by four goals in the space of 11 extraordinary minutes. First Miley equalised, swivelling and shooting low, unerringly and left‑footed through a thicket of legs and on beyond Matz Sels. Miley’s youthful face may reflect the reality that he does not turn 19 until May but his body, and particularly his brain, could easily belong to a man 10 years older.
Before kick-off much was made of the looming midfield duel between Miley and another Newcastle academy graduate, Forest’s Elliot Anderson, but of that pair it was Howe’s No 67 who built the stronger case for a senior England callup.
If it was no accident that Miley, deputising for the not quite fully fit Sandro Tonali in the starting XI, found himself apparently effortlessly in the right place at the right time, Murphy had looked as if he was almost trying too hard to atone for that earlier error.
The right-winger needed to relax and, once he did, redemption arrived as Alexander Isak’s clever, unselfish backheel played in Lewis Hall and the fallout from his cross eventually fell to Murphy to bundle past Sels with his chest.
Howe’s team extended their lead when a VAR review prefaced Jarred Gillett, the referee, deciding that Ola Aina had controlled Hall’s cross with an arm in the area and duly pointed to the spot. Although Sels, who spent two years at Newcastle during Rafael Benítez’s tenure, touched Isak’s far from convincing penalty he could not hold it.
In that instance it left the somewhat fortunate Sweden striker level with Forest’s Chris Wood on 18 Premier League goals this season but, before half-time, Isak had scored his 19th this term and his 50th in 76 league appearances here.
This time Pope rolled the ball out to Hall with some alacrity before the left‑back handed the baton to Joe Willock. Forest had no answer to the latter’s hallmark glide across the turf and all that remained was for Isak to see a left-foot shot sail over Sels after taking a deflection off Murillo. It was perhaps no coincidence that the excellent Hall had been involved in all four goals.
- Download the Guardian app from the iOS App Store on iPhone or the Google Play store on Android by searching for 'The Guardian'.
- If you already have the Guardian app, make sure you’re on the most recent version.
- In the Guardian app, tap the Menu button at the bottom right, then go to Settings (the gear icon), then Notifications.
- Turn on sport notifications.
Yet although Fabian Schär headed a Hall cross against a post, Forest perked up considerably. After failing to heed the warning when Anthony Elanga missed a sitter Newcastle looked mortified as Nikola Milenkovic cleverly flicked a Wood cross past Pope following Anderson’s half-cleared corner.
Small wonder that, as his defence failed to deal with Elanga’s 90th‑minute corner and Ryan Yates half volleyed Forest’s third, Howe’s body language turned incandescent.
