Ivan Toney scored a clever free-kick on his return from suspension as Brentford ended a run of five straight Premier League defeats with a thrilling 3-2 win over fellow strugglers Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Making his first appearance after serving an eight-month ban for breaching the Football Association’s gambling rules, Toney found the bottom-right corner with a curling set-piece effort to cancel out Danilo’s stunning opener in an entertaining first half.
Ben Mee headed Brentford into the lead shortly before the hour mark, but Chris Wood hit back within six minutes at the other end as the teams exchanged further blows.
While all the fanfare centred on Toney’s comeback, it was his strike partner Neal Maupay who proved the matchwinner, firing home on the turn to take Brentford above Forest in the table, with the Bees now six points clear of the bottom three.
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Less than three minutes had been played when Forest hit the front in spectacular fashion, Danilo bringing Mee’s headed clearance down on his thigh and sending a fine 20-yard volley into the bottom-right corner in one movement.
Toney’s big moment arrived just before the 20-minute mark as the home crowd began to grow frustrated.
Orel Mangala’s foul on Mikkel Damsgaard granted Toney a dead-ball opportunity on the edge of the box, and he cleverly moved the ball to the right before curling his effort around Matt Turner’s disorganised wall and in.
Ivan Toney’s last two Premier League goals, scored 266 days apart, are both free-kicks against Nott’m Forest ????#BRENFO pic.twitter.com/uQGzZO57iE
— Premier League (@premierleague) January 20, 2024
The Bees were inches away from taking the lead when Keane Lewis-Potter’s strike crashed off the underside of the crossbar on the half-hour mark, but Turner was just able to scramble the ball of his goal line.
Mangala and Lewis-Potter then traded misses at the start of an open second half, but it was Brentford who went ahead after 58 minutes as Mee powered Mathias Jensen’s corner home at the near post.
However, the Bees’ lead lasted a little over five minutes as Wood met Callum Hudson-Odoi’s cross with a glancing header to find the bottom-right corner and make it 2-2.
Forest’s tails appeared to be up as the game became stretched, but Brentford restored their advantage with 68 minutes played as Maupay swivelled on Mads Roerslev’s right-wing cross before firing into the bottom-right corner.
This match continues to deliver ????
Chris Wood’s equaliser is cancelled out just three minutes later by Neal Maupay’s finish #BRENFO pic.twitter.com/alhcDcmDxq
— Premier League (@premierleague) January 20, 2024
Brentford had to endure 10 minutes of stoppage time at a nervous Gtech Community Stadium, but Forest failed to carve out another clear-cut chance as their woes deepened, a week which began with a Premier League charge for breaching financial rules ending with a defeat.
