Beefy Bites: Hearts and Nottingham Forest at sixes and sevens
Ipswich Town in trouble, Forest and Hearts in the goals and Stockport County sneaking back into contention
There were plenty of goals around over the weekend. Stockport County only needed one and Inter Milan only scored one, but there were big ol’ bootings elsewhere.
Nottingham Forest scored seven in the Premier League. Heart of Midlothian scored six in the Scottish Premiership. Southampton only scored twice but they hurt Ipswich Town in a big bad way.
Here’s your Monday lunchtime round-up.
Whither Ipswich?
Southampton finally picked up their first away win of the season on Saturday but the result said more about defeated Ipswich Town than it did about the Saints.
Kieran McKenna’s Town were able in the early part of the season to chip away at the magic 40-point monolith – and let’s be honest, it won’t take anything like 40 points to avoid the drop this season – but they’re now stuck in the drop zone with deteriorating form.
Ipswich have lost four league games in a row and following three tough fixtures with a home defeat against the shambolic Saints suggests it isn’t just bad luck. They’ve also lost six in eight and nine in twelve.
That’s not the sort of run you need when you have two teams to overhaul, three points to make up and Wolverhampton Wanderers starting, slowly, to bare their teeth.
Forest smash seven past the Seagulls
From Friday’s Premier League Form Guide:
“Forest remain the league’s great expected goals (xG) outlier, sitting in third place in the table despite their xG of 28.5 being lower than everyone except the bottom five. They have the lowest goal difference in the top seven as well.”
Nottingham Forest made short work of that on Saturday, winning 7-0 against Brighton & Hove Albion. They climbed the xG table, wiped out the goal difference damage of last week’s loss at AFC Bournemouth, and now have the fifth-best goal difference in the Premier League.
Morgan Gibbs-White and Anthony Elanga stole the show against the Seagulls but third-placed Forest were spearheaded yet again by Chris Wood, whose hat-trick means he’s scored as many goals as Alexander Isak this season. In the big five European leagues, only Mo Salah, Harry Kane and Erling Haaland have scored more.
Stockport coming up on the rails
Leyton Orient have been in good form of their own lately but Stockport County came away from East London on Sunday with their fourth consecutive win in EFL League One. It took them past Huddersfield Town into fourth after the Terriers’ unedifying loss at Northampton Town.
Stockport are five points behind Wrexham in third and nine short of Wycombe Wanderers in the second automatic promotion spot. The Chairboys are also unbeaten in four as they bounce back from the loss of manager Matt Bloomfield. Mike Dodds was announced as his replacement yesterday.
It was a largely uneventful affair at Brisbane Road before Orient boss Richie Wellens injected some post-match spice. Both teams registered an xG lower than one. Kyle Wootton slid in to capitalise on a fortunate ricochet and score the only goal of the game.
The six of Hearts
2024/25 hasn’t been anything like the season Heart of Midlothian wanted but they’re now well away from the bottom of the Scottish Premiership and unbeaten in six. Four of those six were wins and perhaps the two most impressive were away in Dundee. A few weeks after winning at Tannadice, Hearts went to Dens and hit the Dee for six.
Lawrence Shankland fired into the bottom corner to give Hearts an early lead. Blair Spittal’s half-volley hit the top corner to double the lead. Elton Kabangu’s goal from Shankland’s pass made it 3-0 in the second half. Musa Drammeh capitalised on a goalkeeping error for the fourth. Kabangu crashed in number five. Kenneth Vargas added insult to injury for Dundee in stoppage time.
Hearts are now one point away from the top half. That’s quite the recovery after a shaky start under Neil Critchley. The middle of the table is very congested and Hearts have benefited from that. After slowly dragging themselves off the bottom, they’ve taken two big leaps up the table in short order.
Inter miss out in derby draw
With Napoli three points clear at the top of Serie A before their Sunday evening meeting with Roma (a draw, as it turned out), Inter Milan had a chance to go level on points with a win in the Derby della Madonnina.
AC Milan fielded three English players with Thomas Tuchel in attendance but Fikayo Tomori, Tammy Abraham and debutant Kyle Walker were forced into defensive action for long periods after Tijjani Reijnders rifled their team in front on the stroke of half time at San Siro.
After a more balanced first half, the second was shaped entirely by Inter’s quest for an equaliser. Federico Dimarco and Lautaro Martinez had both had goals disallowed for offside in the first half and the Nerazzurri captain was thwarted by the flag again, this time because the ball had gone out of play, in the second half.
They kept getting closer. After three disallowed goals, Inter hit the post three times. Marcus Thuram’s sumptuous volley was perhaps the best of those opportunities, while Denzel Dumfries was the third player to strike the woodwork in stoppage time.
Ultimately, those six untaken opportunities and some fine goalkeeping by Mike Maignan left Napoli with the chance to go five points clear, but Inter could at least enjoy an equalising goal in the third minute of time added on. Stefan de Vrij swept the ball past Maignan from a cut-back to save a point and spare Inter another derby defeat.
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