was hoping to introduce himself to the City Ground faithful<\/a> with a victory after a 2-2 draw in Spain against Real Betis earlier in the week. <\/p>\nInstead, despite throwing plenty at Sunderland, Forest couldn\u2019t find a way through in a frustrating defeat that was made even harder to take by the controversial free kick call.<\/p>\n
The free kick in question came after Nico Dominguez was given a yellow card by referee Tony Harrington for simulation, with the Forest midfielder appealing for contact from Trai Hume close to his own penalty area. <\/p>\n
The decision did not go down well with a number of Forest players, but as a result they were too slow to refocus as Granit Xhaka picked out an unmarked Omar Alderete inside the penalty area for the 38th-minute header. <\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758410048_740_poster-fallback.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
\u201cWe conceded a really poor goal, albeit from a poor decision from the official, but after that we had enough chances to win the game,\u201d Postecoglou said after the game. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in a cycle at the moment where we are getting every outcome out of the game except the win \u2014 and that is the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reds continue perfect – Ange winless | 02:30<\/p>\n
Forest defender Neco Williams said it was a \u201ctough\u201d loss to take, echoing a similar sentiment to Postecoglou in both criticising the referee\u2019s decision while also admitting they could have defended the free kick better.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a game where we just didn\u2019t finish off our chances. We created many chances but just couldn\u2019t put it to bed,\u201d Williams told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should have defended the free kick better but, at the same time, I\u2019ve never seen a referee give one of those free kicks before in all my time of playing football. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere was contact, so he got it wrong, and for the goal I was held back. He had two arms around my waist and that played a key factor in their goal. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is two poor decisions, especially by the referee and then the people on VAR.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Forest may have felt aggrieved by that decision, they had a number of chances to equalise. <\/p>\n
Their best opportunity came near the end of the game as the ball was crossed into the middle of the box for Chris Wood, who had a clear shot at the header but couldn\u2019t find the back of the net. <\/p>\n
Postecoglou fell to his knees when that header missed and it wasn\u2019t the only shot from close range that Wood had late in the piece, but the Australian wasn\u2019t putting the blame directly on the Forest striker when asked about those missed chances.<\/p>\n
Martinelli saves Gunners in 93rd minute | 00:58<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are others as well. We need to take those chances because ultimately you pay a price in games that you should be winning comfortably,\u201d Postecoglou said.<\/p>\n
Forest has now scored just one goal in three Premier League games under Postecoglou and the Australian didn\u2019t have any answers yet as to why his team is struggling to convert on its opportunities.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to say, but we don\u2019t really have the luxury of time to analyse that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the foundation to win games of football but we aren\u2019t and we need to change that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Postecoglou\u2019s next chance to get a win on the board comes on Friday as Forest\u2019s Europa League campaign continues against Midtjylland, while they travel to Newcastle next Monday morning in the Premier League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ange Postecoglou branded the decision to award the free kick that led to Sunderland\u2019s winning goal \u201can absolute…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,85,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-174295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174295"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174295\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}