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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Marc Mayo

Nottingham Forest 0-2 Tottenham: Dejan Kulusevski leads 10-man Spurs to scrappy win

Tottenham made it back-to-back wins by getting the better of Nottingham Forest on Friday night.

Dejan Kulusevski teed up Richarlison for the opener late in the first half before adding the second himself, for a Spurs side which had to survive playing the final 20 minutes with ten men after Yves Bissouma's red card.

The visitors put together a trademark fast start and went close through Heung-min Son in the second minute, the in-form club captain denied by Matt Turner one-on-one - although VAR may well have pulled back his finish for offside.

Further openings came via Brennan Johnson and Ben Davies before the former Forest man was taken off with a head injury on the half-hour mark, around the time Forest began to gain a foothold courtesy of the visitors' sloppy play.

Nonetheless, Tottenham led in first-half stoppage time when Kulusevski's superb cross from the right was nodded home by Richarlison.

Forest bounced back well after the break and Anthony Elanga's delicious chip into the box found the unmarked Willy Boly at the far post, only for the big defender to produce a big defender's finish and fly his volley well over.

Elanga thought he had levelled up on the hour when turning home Neco Williams' low cross, but VAR rightly chalked it off with several men in red offside against Spurs' high line as the delivery came in.

Only minutes later, Kulusevski again made the difference in quality pay dividends as Turner's poor pass out from the back was gobbled up by the Swede, who drilled an effort in through the ex-Arsenal goalkeeper's weak palms.

Tottenham were quick to dip into a piece of trademark jeopardy however with Bissouma sent off for a studs-up challenge on Ryan Yates' knee, which Jarred Gillett converted from a yellow to red card after a VAR review.

The flat City Ground struggled to rally from two goals down despite the man advantage, even after Guglielmo Vicario superbly denied Harry Toffolo's close-range header. The Italian's clean sheet lived a charmed life with a late Williams effort off the post but Spurs held on to go level on points with fourth-placed Manchester City.

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