TOWN 1 FOREST 1
- Town draw in front of the Sky cameras
- Emyr Huws scored 4th in the last 3 games
- Seven points from the last nine available
A fourth goal in three games from midfielder Emyr Huws earned Town a deserved point against visitors Nottingham Forest on Thursday evening.
After a positive start, a Ryan Mendes goal stunned the Stadium and saw Forest lead at the interval, but the Terriers kept plugging away and Huws’ deflected long range strike beat Dorus De Vries to earn a share of the spoils.
Chris Powell's side were looking to make it three wins in a row as they faced Nottingham Forest in front of the Sky cameras at the John Smith’s Stadium.
Powell's side came into the game on the back of Saturday’s 4-1 victory over Bolton Wanderers last time out and the Manager named an unchanged side.
The game started frantically with neither team able to get a grasp of the ball in the opening exchanges. The first real opportunity fell to Town; Elliott Ward headed wide following an in-swinging corner from Mustapha Carayol.
Sean Scannell and Carayol were causing the Forest backline all sorts of problems with their pace. Carayol beat his marker Eric Lichaj successive times on the left wing and provided a good cross across the face of goal but to no avail, as it failed to find a Town player inside the area.
Town were completely dominant inside the first 20 minutes but couldn't get that clear cut chance to give them the lead.
The East Midlands side, who were beaten by Middlesbrough last time out, failed to get into the Town final quarter until the 22nd minute when Daniel Pinillos broke free down the left hand side to cross to the back post where Eric Lichaj leaped above Jason Davidson to head the ball down to an onrushing Ryan Mendes who put his shot into past Jed Steer to give Forest a one goal lead.
With half time approaching, the next good opportunity fell to Forest's even increasing livewire Jamie Ward, but his shot was comfortably defused by Jed Steer in the Terriers' goal.
Both sides went into the break with the only clear cut chance being the one which saw Mendes give the men from the City Ground the lead.
Town began the second half brightly, with Dean Whitehead threading a neat through ball for Martin Cranie who got in behind the Forest backline and cut the ball back for Harry Bunn who shot right footed from the edge of the area but his shot was headed away by Kelvin Wilson.
Harry Bunn and Jason Davidson linked up well on the left wing and were able to cross the ball in for Sean Scannell at the back post but it was too high for Sean Scannell and the keeper collected the ball comfortably.
Bunn found space on the right hand wing taking on his marker and bearing down on goal but finding his shot on the angle deflected wide.
The game then opened up into an end to end battle with both sides seeing a lot of the ball in the opposing teams half. Nahki Wells replaced Mustapha Carayol as Town switched to a 3-4-1-2 formation as they looked for the equaliser.
Forest nearly doubled their lead in the 77th minute as Chris Burke broke the offside trap and found himself clean through on goal. He moved the ball onto his left foot and hit the post; the rebound found Chris O'Grady, but his shot was brilliantly cleared off the line by Martin Cranie.
The equaliser then came on the 84th minute as the ball came out to Emyr Huws 20 yards from goal where he smashed it goalwards, taking a big deflection and hitting the underside of the bar on the way in to give Town that crucial equaliser. This was the midfielder’s 4th goal from his previous three games.
The closing stages were fast paced and frantic with both teams looking for that vital winner but it wasn't to come and both teams took a point a piece.
Town’s team (4-2-3-1):
Jed Steer; Jason Davidson, Joel Lynch, Elliot Ward, Martin Cranie; Emyr Huws, Dean Whitehead (c); Mustapha Carayol (Nahki Wells, 75), Harry Bunn, Sean Scannell (Joe Lolley, 80); Ishmael Miller
Unused subs:
Lloyd Allinson, Tommy Smith, Jonathan Hogg, Kyle Dempsey, Flo Bojaj