Oliver Glasner returned to Selhurst Park to a rapturous reception from the Crystal Palace supporters who once worshipped him. He left it beaten, with the home crowd asking him what the score was.
His Nottingham Forest side had made the ideal start. Dan Ndoye was handed the opening goal early on when Anan Khalaili’s weak header let him run through and beat Walter Benítez with ease, and for much of the opening half hour Pierre Sage’s Palace were awful. Forest piled on the pressure, with Jefferson Lerma — filling in at the back only because Axel Disasi was suspended — looking particularly vulnerable, while Morgan Gibbs-White picked out the unmarked Ndoye for a chance Benítez tipped over. Daniel Muñoz came within inches of scoring against his former club.
Forest could not find a second. Benítez produced a remarkable double save to deny Liam Delap from three yards, pushing Gibbs-White’s shot on to the crossbar, and Delap then spurned another golden opportunity with his head. The misses were punished in the moments before half-time.
Daichi Kamada scrambled the equaliser home from inside the six-yard area after Jørgen Strand Larsen’s pass deflected straight into his path, a first Premier League goal in his 68th appearance. The irony will not have been lost on Glasner: Kamada won the Europa League under him at Eintracht Frankfurt, and it was Glasner who brought him to Selhurst Park on a free transfer.
Palace found belief from there. Tyrick Mitchell’s volley was tipped over and from the resulting corner Lerma leapt highest, the ball squirming through Matz Sels’s legs and just over the line. Glasner looked deeply unimpressed as he headed down the tunnel at the interval. Palace, who have inherited their former manager’s difficulties defending set pieces, were lucky to escape when a Gibbs-White header was deflected on to the post by Mitchell.
Forest looked at sixes and sevens at the other end when Lerma again caused chaos from a corner, but they scrambled the ball away. There was no such reprieve a few minutes later, when Quinten Timber’s pass was diverted into the path of Strand Larsen and Yéremy Pino made no mistake with the rebound. The goal was greeted with a chorus of ‘You’re getting sacked in the morning’ directed at Glasner. Pino then turned provider, though Strand Larsen could not find a way past Sels this time, and Ndoye and Neco Williams both had late chances to make things interesting. Forest, and Glasner, were well beaten by then.
The afternoon carried a bitter backdrop. Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis was conspicuous by his absence from the directors’ box after his public spats with his Palace counterpart, Steve Parish, and he is suing Palace and ‘persons unknown’ over a banner featuring an incendiary cartoon of him that was unfurled during the first half of the sides’ meeting last August; the supporters’ group thought to have been behind it has since disbanded. Glasner’s decision to join Forest in the summer only added to the ill-feeling created by the dispute over Palace’s demotion from the Europa League last season, even if he was warmly welcomed when he emerged before kick-off. Palace fans instead launched into the anti-Uefa and Marinakis song that was the soundtrack to their Conference League triumph, while the Forest supporters responded with taunts of ‘We’ve got Ollie Glasner.’
For Sage, appointed after Glasner’s summer departure, it was a first home victory in the Premier League.