FA Cup: Nottingham Forest stun Arsenal
Nottingham Forest 1 - 0 Arsenal
The City Ground was bouncing as Championship side Nottingham Forest stunned Arsenal with a tremendous performance.
The winning goal came from Lewis Grabban as he slid home Ryan Yates' inviting cross seven minutes from time.
All the best reaction
Forest goalscorer Lewis Grabban told ITV: "It was good! We did well throughout the game, we deserved it and didn’t have many chances but when we got it we put it away. It is always hard against Arsenal but we did deserve it."
Forest manager Steve Cooper added to the same channel: "I'm really proud of the boys, pleased with the performance. It's brilliant to get through and I hope the players now really believe in what we're doing."
A special page dedicated to the FA Cup (eurosuperfootball.blogspot.com)
This is how the Nottingham Forest Twitter account responded after a wonderful afternoon and evening at The City Ground.
🤩 The Reds defeat The Gunners! 👊
— Nottingham Forest FC (@NFFC) January 9, 2022
🌳🔴 #NFFC pic.twitter.com/DW4SuMO1G9
As you can imagine the reaction from the Arsenal side of things was less positive. The Gunners boss was far happy with his side's performance. Arteta told ITV: "They won, they scored a goal and we didn’t. We were not good enough and we have to apologise for it.
"I don’t want to use excuses, I expect the team I put out to do better and when you don’t in the cup you are out."
We spoke with a number of Arsenal fans after the match and they were all critical of their side's performance. One said: "There have been some definite improvements this season, but we are still capable of a shocking and awful performance like that one. The FA Cup represented a decent chance of winning a trophy, and it's gone at the first hurdle."
After the match, it was announced that Forest would play 2021 winners Leicester City in the next round. The last remaining chance of a trophy for Arsenal comes in the form of the League Cup.
