Nottingham Forest do ‘miracle men’ of 1979 proud with easy win against Malmo

Things are looking up for Nottingham Forest but tonight their fans get a chance to look back as they take on Malmo in a repeat of the 1979 European Cup final.

Trevor Francis scored the game’s only goal that night in the first of the club’s two European Cup successes under Brian Clough, and a match-up between Forest and Malmo is now impossible to imagine in that fixture.

Nevertheless, Forest can be excited about being back in the Europa League where a 2-0 victory over Porto has been the highlight of their campaign so far.

With five points from four games in the competition, Forest sit just one place above the cut-line for elimination but they will need to go on a tear to make the top-eight from here. A place in a two-legged play-off is more realistic.

Sean Dyche has steered Forest to consecutive Premier League victories, including a 3-0 win at Anfield over struggling Liverpool.

Callum Hudson-Odoi believes Dyche has “reconnected” the Forest squad after Ange Postecoglou’s brief and unhappy tenure.

“I think Sean and his staff have come in and done an amazing job,” the former Chelsea winger said.

“Since they’ve been here you can tell the energy around the group has changed and everybody’s just working as hard as we can to get the best possible results.

”The energy that he has brought here, the bond and strength that we have had before will come back and you can tell that we are wanting to fight for every game we play in.

“A lot has changed, I think it was a bit scratched a while ago, so I think he’s come in now, and you can tell the bonds, the group has reconnected very well and everybody is just focusing on doing what we know best, which is playing football and enjoying football.

“I think it’s just the connections that were a bit lost for a bit of a while, but now I think everything’s connecting back nicely.

“Everybody’s working hard to do the right things and hopefully keep getting good results.”

Full team news on the way shortly.