MAN IN THE MASK HALTS CITY CHARGE

SUBSTITUTE Lewis McGugan came up trumps with a late leveller to preserve Nottingham Forest's unbeaten away record in the league and prevent Cardiff going top of the Championship table.

The Bluebirds were poised to reach the summit when Jay Bothroyd calmly converted the opening goal on 63 minutes but Billy Davies's side showed their fighting spirit and deservedly rescued a point.

Joe Ledley's perfectly-timed pass released Bothroyd and the striker placed a left-footed finish wide of Lee Camp for his fifth goal of the campaign, despite suspicions he was marginally offside.

Forest battled back but missed chances through David McGoldrick and Kelvin Wilson before a couple of deflections in injury time saw the ball fall kindly for McGugan and the man wearing a protective mask lashed a left-foot drive past David Marshall in the City goal.

There was still time for Michael Chopra to rashly challenge Camp for a through ball and pick up a yellow card when it could arguably have been red, even if the wet conditions meant he could not control his skid into the keeper.

Camp had impressed in the first half in keeping out Peter Whittingham and Ledley, while Paul Anderson had an appeal for a penalty turned away at the other end, before shooting just wide.

Bothroyd had a couple of openings before breaking the deadlock but Ledley felt he had opened the scoring when his effort was hacked away from right on the line by Radoslaw Majewski.

A draw was probably a fair result on reflection as these two sides both look capable of being in the promotion shake-up at the end of the season.

This article has 0 comments