Nottingham Forest edged through to the semi-final of the Carabao Cup by beating Wolves on penalties on a controversial night of football at The City Ground.
Former Wolves stalwart Willy Boly gave Forest in the lead in the first-half, before the visitors equalised through Raul Jimenez’s strike in the 64th minute. That was enough to take the game to spot-kicks, although Wolves were far from happy after the referee didn’t award a penalty in normal time for a possible foul on Matheus Nunes.
It seemed as though the Portugal international was clipped inside the area, but Graham Scott waved appeals away as the game played on. There is no VAR in the competition until the last four, so Wolves had no chance of the decision being overturned by the video technology.
In the penalty shootout, Wolves were put on the front foot when Sam Surridge missed his first kick, before Ruben Neves returned the favours and also couldn’t find the net. However, goals from Remo Freuler, Daniel Podence, Joe Worrall, Nunes, Morgan Gibbs-White, Matheus Cunha and Jack Colback meant 20-year-old Joe Hodge had to score.
And the Manchester-born midfielder saw his penalty saved by Dean Henderson to seal Forest’s passage into the semi-final of the competition for the first time since 1992. The Reds have since been drawn against Manchester United in the last four, with Newcastle United playing Southampton in the other game.
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However, the highly-competitive affair boiled over following the shootout after Cunha appeared to replicate Gibbs-White’s celebration. The latter decided to point his fingers into his ears and stand directly at the travelling Wolves contingent after scoring his penalty – an incident that followed Boly’s respectful and muted celebration earlier on.
Moments later, Cunha then decided to do the same celebration as Gibbs-White but directed it at the Forest fans in an attempt to mock the ex-Wolves ace. Colback joined in with the fun following his successful spot-kick, and after Hodge missed for Wolves to send Forest through, the clash hit breaking point.
Henderson wildly celebrated on his own, and with the rest of the Forest players, before the two teams clashed in the middle of the park. There is still no firm evidence as to why it kicked off but it appeared that Toti Gomes and Gibbs-White were involved in an altercation, while security had to come over to tackle the brawl.
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Serge Aurier, Adama Traore, Jesse Lingard and Henderson also seemed in the thick of the action, with both teams’ coaching staff aiming to cool the tempers. Julien Lopetegui went over to Aurier to calm the Ivorian down as he didn’t look best pleased with Toti as Henderson continued to celebrate and taunt the Wolves players.
After the game, Steve Cooper commented on the incident but didn’t give much away. He said: “I’m not going to deny there wasn’t an incident afterwards. I shouldn’t say anything about how it happened and why it happened, I haven’t seen what Gibbs-White did at the end of game so I can’t comment on it.”
Both teams are sunk deep into a relegation battle, with Wolves currently in 19th, having collected just 14 points from their 18 matches, while Forest are four places above them in the table. Wolves are next in action when they face fellow strugglers West Ham, with Cooper’s Forest facing a mouth-watering tie against East Midlands rivals Leicester.
