Nottingham Forest 7-0 Brighton: Chris Wood hat-trick keeps Forest ...

Nottingham Forest tightened their grip on the race for Champions League qualification with a remarkable 7-0 win over Brighton as Chris Wood hit a hat-trick.

After suffering a 5-0 defeat last weekend at Bournemouth, Nuno Espirito Santo called for a response and his team delivered against an abysmal Brighton team.

A Lewis Dunk own goal sent them on their way before Morgan Gibbs-White, who provided the cross for the opening goal, headed home a second.

Chris Wood then took over, making it 3-0 from an Anthony Elanga cross.

Elanga completed a hat-trick of assists when he set up Wood's second and the New Zealand striker followed suit in the goals column when he tucked away a penalty before Neco Williams and Jota Silva finished the rout.

This was Forest's biggest league win since a 7-0 victory over Chelsea in the top flight in April 1991.

The result lifts Forest to 47 points and level on points with Arsenal in second. They are seven points clear of sixth place with a fifth-placed finish highly likely to be enough for Champions League qualification.

Brighton were simply not at the races.

Hurzeler shows his inexperience

Sky Sports' Lewis Jones:

Fabian Hurzeler got this so wrong. Top-level management is all about finding solutions to problems and Hurzeler did not solve the puzzle presented to him with central midfielders Carlos Baleba and Yasin Ayari being unavailable. He threw Jack Hinshelwood into an impossible situation of trying to play central midfield on his own against Gibbs-White, who was in the mood to cause carnage. Forest completely ran riot in that space.

They were in their element, setting their counter-attacks to perfection as the Brighton defence couldn't cope - as shown by some horrific and out-of-character mistakes from some of their key players. At a club that isn't used to losing games in this fashion, the manager will now be under big scrutiny.

Forest are the clean sheet kings

Sky Sports' Lewis Jones:

Nottingham Forest are everything Brighton are not. Dangerous, aggressive and clinical.

It's a style of football that isn't very sexy in the possession mad modern day world of the Premier League but Forest are so good in both boxes. They defend deep and in numbers but they do it brilliantly, led by Nikola Milenkovic. Brighton found that out as Forest kept a 10th clean sheet of the season - the most of any team in the Premier League.

Then up the other end, they have players brimming with confidence. Wood and Elanga were running hot, flanked by a special performance by Gibbs-White. When he plays like this, floating around the pitch creating so much havoc, there are fewer better in the Premier League. Forest a joy.

'My lowest moment as a manager'

Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler said:

"It is not easy to point a finger at one thing. To say the tactical thing was wrong, to say that a player was not in his best shape.

"To say they were not good in possession or out of possession. In the end it is a thing of togetherness. We were all not on our highest level today.

"We all need to be honest with each other, look in the mirror and say that is not how we want to play football, that is not how we want to present us. We take responsibility - all of us - for this result.

"It is not easy but we have to apologise for this result, to our supporters.

Asked if it was the lowest moment he'd experienced as a manager, he replied: "Yes."

Story of the match in stats...

Opta stats: Barnstorming Forest

• Nottingham Forest are only the second side in Premier League history to lose a game by 5+ goals (5-0 vs Bournemouth last weekend) and then follow it up by immediately winning their next game in the competition by 5+ goals, after Sheffield Wednesday in November 1997 (1-6 v Man Utd, 5-0 v Bolton).
• Wood became the first Nottingham Forest player to score a top-flight hat-trick at the City Ground since Nigel Clough against QPR in December 1987.
• Wood has scored 17 league goals this season, his outright most ever in a single Premier League campaign (14 in 2019-20 and 2023-24). Only Stan Collymore (22 in 1994-95) has scored more for Nottingham Forest in a season in the competition.
• Dunk has scored seven own goals in the Premier League with only Richard Dunne (10) putting through his own net on more occasions in the competition's history. Indeed, since the start of their first Premier League campaign in 2017-18, Brighton have scored more own goals than any other side (19).

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