Right then, I’m off. While you wait for the match report to drop, here’s an Afcon final liveblog:
Leicester have released a statement concerning the pitch invader:
The club is appalled by such behaviour and offers its apologies to Nottingham Forest and its players whose safety was compromised. We applaud the swift action taken by City Ground stewards in apprehending the individual involved, who will be subject to a lifetime ban from all Leicester City fixtures at home and away. We will offer every support to the relevant authorities in pursuing further appropriate action.
Since Steve Cooper’s appointment on 21 September 2021 Forest have the third best record in the Championship with 39 points and a goal difference of +13, behind only Fulham (42 points, +37(!)) and Blackburn (40 points, +12). To be fair QPR also have 39 points, and have played one less game. When he was appointed Forest had played eight games, won one and were bottom of the league. They were nine points off the play-offs; that number now is two.
The pitch invader who was throwing punches at celebrating Forest players a little earlier is now in police custody, apparently.
Brennan Johnson on the Steve Cooper effect:
He’s just taught us all to believe in the way we play, especially against Premier League teams. We know we’re a good team. We know the Huddersfield’s game [in round five] is going to be a big one. We’ve beaten Premier League teams and we don’t want to be done by a team of lower quality.
Final score: Nottingham Forest 4-1 Leicester City
The holders lose their grip on the FA Cup, their defence obliterated by a rampant, wildly exciting Nottingham Forest!
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90+2 mins: We might hear some more about this:
A Leicester fan trying to fight the Forest players. Disgraceful 😳pic.twitter.com/fscJeX5HIP
— 101 Great Goals (@101greatgoals) February 6, 2022
90+1 mins: Leicester nearly score a second, but Ricardo Pereira shoots across goal and just wide of the far post.
90+1 mins: Stoppage time has begun. It will stop in three minutes.
88 mins: A couple more substitutions. Forest take off the good Garner and excellent Johnson and bring on Cafu and Silva.
84 mins: Leicester pass the ball around in defence before Soyuncu eventually pumps it aimlessly forward and Forest get it back.
82 mins: Save! Amartey’s dipping shot is well saved by Samba, who can’t have seen it until late.
81 mins: They’re still pushing, but not at all convincingly. They win a corner, which is headed clear.
78 mins: Leicester are enjoying a few minutes of sustained territorial advantage, though without creating anything with it.
74 mins: Maddison gets a booking for running through the space where Jed Spence was and would still have been had he not leapt into the air and to his right.
71 mins: Sam Surridge makes his debut off the bench, replacing Davis for Forest.
70 mins: For the first time tonight, Forest boot the ball aimlessly clear.
67 mins: Forest still want more, and Lowe runs onto Garner’s pass before hitting a left-footed half-volley across goal and wide.
66 mins: Garner is booked for fouling Maddison.
65 mins: Leicester take off Lookman and Tielemans and bring on Ricardo Pereira and Dewsbury-Hall.
62 mins: Forest take of Zinckernagel, scorer of the first and creator of the last, and bring Colback on.
GOAL! Nottingham Forest 4-1 Leicester (Spence, 60 mins)
Forest score another! From a throw-in on the right Spence runs infield, plays a one-two with Zinckernagel and, with two players to his left open for a pass, prods it past Ward and into the back of the net!
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60 mins: Lookman gets in front of Garner, goes into the area and throws himself down. The referee shakes his head and Forest rip down the other end where Johnson has a shot saved, and then another shot saved.
59 mins: Ndidi brings Zinckernagel down from behind. “Lucky not to get booked there,” says Martin Keown on commentary as the referee gets his book out.
57 mins: “You’re right Brendan Rodgers didn’t have a great spell at Reading,” writes Jon Keen. “He came in with his “methodology” - all set out on PowerPoint - but the players at the club then just weren’t flexible or skilled enough to play that system and there was no Plan B. He went to Swansea who had the right players for it, and there was no looking back!” He’s probably got some good use out of that PowerPoint presentation - a couple of name changes here and there and it’s ready for the next interview.
55 mins: A chance for Leicester, but Iheanacho lays off to Daka, who skies his shot from 15 yards.
53 mins: Leicester break, and at the end of the move Maddison sends a low, curling shot just wide of goal from the edge of the area.
52 mins: From the free kick Leicester attempt a routine they’ve worked on on the training-ground, although there they presumably didn’t pass the ball straight to an opponent.
50 mins: Leicester win a corner, which is well cleared by McKenna. Soyuncu picks it up on the right and basically stands still and waits for Zinckernagel to run over and straight into him, which doesn’t take long. Free kick.
48 mins: So Forest haven’t been told to sit back and defend their lead. Zinckernagel runs into the Leicester half, resists the opportunity to go down with Ndidi pretty much hanging off his back, and passes to Johnson whose shot deflects wide.
46 mins: Peeeeep! They’re playing again at the City Ground.
The players are back out and ready to go. Leicester have made one halftimely change, taking Barnes off and bringing Daka on.
“I’m old enough to remember people saying Brendan Rogers is an elite manager and we’d be lucky to have him at Spurs,” writes Shorkey. “So much for that eh?” I’m still a believer, but there are managers who can work with the same group of players almost indefinitely without diminishing rewards, and others who seem to only have two or three seasons in them. Rodgers doesn’t seem to be in the first group, but he had had a significant positive impact on almost every club he has managed (all of them except Reading, probably).
Half time: Nottingham Forest 3-1 Leicester City
45+4 mins: We have had half of the time, and Forest have been superb. They have scored three, might have had another couple, and now have a chance to recover from the gift of the goal that let Leicester back into the contest.
45+2 mins: There’s a stoppage-time stoppage after Garner slips, and McKenna falls over his head. Happily, he looks to have recovered.
45+1 mins: There will be three minutes of stoppage time, or something along those lines.
43 mins: Before the goal Leicester were basically desperately clinging on for half-time when Brendan Rodgers might have produced a rocket to wake them up. Now, though, they’re dominating possession and it’s the home side who look ready for a refresh.
GOAL! Nottingham Forest 3-1 Leicester (Iheanacho, 40 mins)
From nowhere, Leicester are back in the game! Maddison curls a pass down the left flank with the outside of his right foot, and Samba in the Forest goal makes a mad dash to intercept, fails, and leaves Iheanacho with an empty goal to aim at. Stretching, sliding and from wide on the left, he finds it!
Updated
40 mins: Save! Forest nearly have a fourth after Zinckernagel and Davis combine before setting up Spence, whose effort hits the keeper.
37 mins: Forest win another corner, but this time the whistle blows while the ball is in the air after Soyuncu goes down.
34 mins: There are upsets, and then there’s lower-division opponents spending quarter of an hour or so repeatedly ripping the FA Cup holders to shreds like so much damp tissue.
32 mins: Garner does have excellent set piece delivery, and it dips into the depths of the area widely known as the mixer from where Worrall’s diving, bouncing header finds the net!
GOAL! Nottingham Forest 3-0 Leicester (Worrall, 31 mins)
Forest are ripping Leicester apart! Ward in the Leicester goal turns a shot round the post, and from the corner Joe Worrall heads in!
30 mins: Forest hold the ball away from and play it around Leicester’s defence for a while, before Spence’s cross deflects behind for a corner. Their fans are having the best of times.
27 mins: Zinckernagel, who really needs to stop doing niggly fouls on Forest’s left flank, brings down Justin with a niggly foul.
26 mins: Just 24 seconds elapsed between the restart and the second goal.
GOAL! Nottingham Forest 2-0 Leicester (Johnson, 24 mins)
And another one! Almost from the kick-off! It’s a backpass from Amartey on the Forest left, and Johnson latches on to it, draws the keepeer and tucks it through his legs and into the net!
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GOAL! Nottingham Forest 1-0 Leicester (Zinckernagel, 23 mins)
Spence lays off to Johnson, whose cross is headed down by Davis to leave Zinckernagel with what is pretty much a tap-in! He taps in with his shin. Pretty classy goal, that.
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22 mins: A lovely backheel flick from Johnson in midfield illustrates Forest’s confidence. And it’s no surprise because ...
18 mins: Chance for Forest! Garner takes a free-kick from the right, and it’s sent into the mixer, headed out, sent back in, and Davis Chests it down and volleys back across goal and off the corner of post and bar!
14 mins: Leicester go close again, but Barnes’ low centre runs beyond Lookman, who throws himself at it but can’t make contact. All the action is coming down that wing, where Spence and Johnson look bright for Forest, and Barnes for Leicester.
11 mins: Leicester win a corner on the right and pass it along the edge of the area to Lookman, whose first-time shot would have been on target had it not hit a defender and deflected wide.
9 mins: Neither side is hanging around. Leicester win a free-kick on halfway, and the TV cameras zoom in on Maddison, who won it. By the time they pan out again a second later the ball is already rolling.
6 mins: Chance for Leicester! They attack down the left, from where Barnes passes infield for Thomas, who passes infield to Ihenacho, who blazes high and wide!
5 mins: Brennan takes the kick, and biffs it into the wall.
4 mins: A lovely cross from Johnson on the Forest right is headed to the edge of the area, where Yates is brought down. Free kick, and a decent shooting chance.
3 mins: A predictably full-throttle opening to the game, but no chances yet.
1 min: Forest get the game started.
And out they come!
The players are gathering in the tunnel, and the coaches have made their way to the bench. Kick-off is but a few minutes away.
Foil-wrapped cardboard FA Cup: Tick.
Steve Cooper has a chat:
We’re really looking forward to it. It’s going to be a tough game but we always back ourselves and today’s a good day of showing what we can do. You have to back yourself in any game that you play. We’re trying to build a mentality, we’re trying to grow the team and the mentality, and whatever team is in front of us we go into it with the same idea. [Leicester are good and stuff but] we’ve got to think about what we can bring to the game and concentrate on that.
Keinan Davis, the Aston Villa striker currently on loan at Forest, starts in attack with new signing Sam Surridge on the bench. Meanwhile it’s three changes for Leicester, with Iheanacho and Ndidi back in the starting XI.
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The teams!
Both teams have announced their line-ups, and here they are:
📋 Team news 🆚 Leicester City
— Nottingham Forest FC (@NFFC) February 6, 2022
🔢 Steve Cooper names his side for our @EmiratesFACup fourth round tie 👊
🌳🔴 #NFFC pic.twitter.com/i5A4WmtzD2
Our #EmiratesFACup starting XI is in at the City Ground 📝#NfoLei pic.twitter.com/EsbmO0LhNI
— Leicester City (@LCFC) February 6, 2022
Hello world!
And so fourth round weekend coasts towards its conclusion, with this the penultimate match. A home tie against Huddersfield in round five is the prize that these two teams will contest today. Leicester are of course defending champions, but with one win, a draw and two defeats to their name in the league since Christmas their form isn’t exactly scintillating, while Forest have won four out of five in all competitions, including their third-round victory over Arsenal.
Forest will be without the man who scored the only goal in that game, their top scorer Lewis Grabban, who is expected to be out for a while after injuring his ankle in last Sunday’s defeat at Cardiff. As a result deadline-day signing Sam Surridge could make his debut, with another new arrival in Jonathan Panzo also potentially involved.
Leicester will be boosted by the return of Wilfred Ndidi and Kelechi Iheanacho, who have both returned from the Africa Cup of Nations, though Nampalys Mendy is still in Cameroon and preparing to play for Senegal in tonight’s final. Wesley Fofana, Jamie Vardy, Jonny Evans, Timothy Castagne and Ricardo Pereira are all injured.
Forest have played Leicester three times in major cup competitions and won only once - and that was in the FA Cup back in 1901, when their opponents were still known as Leicester Fosse and the gate was depressed by the fact that Notts County were playing Liverpool at home on the same afternoon (they won 2-0). The game, according to the Sportsman, was “disappointing as a spectacle” and certainly one-sided: Forest were four up inside 20 minutes and eventually won 5-1. Anyway, welcome!
