In Sean Dyche’s first game in charge of Nottingham Forest, two VAR-awarded penalties sealed a 2-0 over an FC Porto side that looked very threatening on the attack.
19 minutes into the game, Morgan Gibbs-White scored after a review confirmed that FC Porto’s Jan Bednarek handled the ball in the box.
The Forest number 10 stepped up and converted the penalty.
The game still looked within the grasp of Porto as they even got a goal slotted in by Bednarek but was ruled out because Samu was offside and he had a hand in the ball falling kindly for the defender who scored.
20 minutes after, Nicolo Savona was fouled. The referee’s decision was that he dived and so was booked but after a VAR review, the yellow card was rescinded and a penalty was awarded.
Gibbs-White who converted the earlier penalty let Igor Jesus to take this second one and the striker calmly placed it in the middle to double Forest’s lead.
Nonetheless, the pressure was still on from Porto.
They got eight corners (while Forest got just three) and had more efforts on target than Forest.
Porto came into the game on the back of two straight wins but it was Sean Dyche’s night and a happy one for Evangelos Marinakis who can enjoy some respite after sacking Ange Postecoglou over a run of bad results.
