Jason Cummings made only his second Championship start as Nottingham Forest welcomed Fulham to the City Ground.
There aren’t usually too many positives you can take from a 3-1 home defeat. Especially after you’ve lost five of your last six games in league and cup and the only victory in that time was against a beleaguered Sunderland outfit.
Yet, Forest’s ultimately point-less performance against Fulham on Tuesday night was much improved from their toothless display in the 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa at the weekend. In fact, a stunning Stefan Johansen free-kick and a late Neeskens Kebano clincher gave Fulham are rather flattering victory that did not quite accurately reflect the pattern of the game.
Once again, Forest fans will lament their error-strewn defence for gifting the visitors three points but at least manager Mark Warburton clawed back some degree of credit by starting seldom-seen summer signing Jason Cummings up top alongside the in-form Daryl Murphy.
While veteran Murphy scored again to make it six in nine league games for Forest, Cummings wasted a number of presentable opportunities to give the hosts a vital lead. However, the fact that the Scottish striker, signed from Hibernian this summer, was handed his second league start at least provides some reason for optimism.
After all, fans have been clamouring to see more of a player who broke the 20-goal barrier in each of the last three seasons north of the border.
Although Warburton’s decision to sub him off with 20 minutes to go, with the scores level at 1-1 no less, did not go down too well.
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