For Nottingham Forest, this was one of those absorbing occasions worth the long wait. After 23 years outside the top flight, how they enjoyed giving Liverpool a bloody nose and who better to clinch victory than Taiwo Awoniyi, who left them without making a first-team appearance after being farmed out on loan seven times in six years?
Steve Cooper’s name reverberated around this throbbing stadium at the final whistle as fans launched into a hearty chorus of “Forest are back, Forest are back”.
Liverpool struggled to get to grips with Awoniyi and his second-half strike earned Forest a second Premier League win of the season, a result that hoists them off the foot of the table.
A few minutes before kick-off Cooper looked deep into the stands, hands behind his back clasping a water bottle, seemingly even now a touch mesmerised by the sound of the Trent End in full voice.
He recognised this was a landmark victory that would please several generations, alluding to how some supporters would have ringed this game on their calendars such is the nostalgia of this fixture. The first league meeting between these sides since 1999, when Pierre van Hooijdonk rescued a draw, did not disappoint.
Forest required, Cooper said, the perfect performance given the calibre of opposition and from Dean Henderson’s heroics in goal to the academy graduate Ryan Yates’s omnipresent display in midfield and Awoniyi’s constant badgering of the Liverpool defence, Forest were relentless. Jürgen Klopp, however, was understandably seething given the number of chances his side passed up.
Forest supporters celebrated Virgil van Dijk’s miss from a Trent Alexander-Arnold free-kick with 30 seconds of normal time to play like a goal and went berserk when Henderson somehow kept out Van Dijk’s downward header midway through five minutes of second-half stoppage time. An unmarked
Van Dijk met an Alexander-Arnold corner on the edge of the six-yard box and planted his header but Henderson dived low to save, leading Morgan Gibbs-White to bump chests with the England goalkeeper. Henderson then tipped over to deny Mohamed Salah.
At this point last year Liverpool were a formidable force, unbeaten and blowing teams away at will. They had just won successive league games 5-0, one of those a rout of Manchester United at Old Trafford days after victory at Atlético Madrid in the Champions League.
Liverpool, all in white, were a pale imitation of that side. Klopp made five changes from the victory over West Ham in midweek, with James Milner reverting to right-back in place of Alexander-Arnold who would enter as second-half substitute, and Jordan Henderson also dropping to the bench despite Thiago Alcântara missing with an ear infection.
Salah was muted in attack and Liverpool appeared disjointed in midfield, with Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott overrun. Milner made a desperate flying block approaching the hour to deny Gibbs-White from adding a second and with five minutes to spare Alisson superbly denied Yates.
This game could have taken a different shape had Van Dijk taken Liverpool’s best chance eight minutes before the break. Liverpool recycled a corner, with Milner shifting on to his left foot and sending a perfect cross towards the back post, where Van Dijk was unmarked after peeling off Cheikhou Kouyaté. He presumably did not realise quite how much room he had to play with and nodded the ball across the six-yard box in search of Firmino but it whirled out for a goal-kick. Klopp suggested Van Dijk was perhaps spooked because he thought he may have been offside.
Forest gave as good as they got and deserved their goal 10 minutes into the second half. Joe Gomez, who did little to back up talk of an England recall, was booked for tugging at Awoniyi on halfway and Yates arrowed the resulting free-kick wide for the centre-back Steve Cook, who zipped a cross in from the right. Awoniyi arranged his feet and sent a shot against a post before tucking in the rebound and duly soaking up the adulation from the sunbathed stands.
After Van Dijk, Salah and Alexander-Arnold failed to to find an equaliser, Awoniyi, a ‚£17m summer signing from Union Berlin, could finally savour his special moment. “To score against Liverpool is a day I will never forget,” he said. “I will always be grateful to Liverpool for scouting me from Nigeria and scoring against them is amazing.”
