Chris Wood scored a hat trick when Nottingham Forest returned to winning roads with a beautiful 7-0 routing from Brighton on the city on Saturday.
The Nuno Espirito Santo team showed no signs that they were startled last week by their 5-0 defeat in Bournemouth, and two better against Fabian Hurzeler's error-sensitive seagulls.
Lewis Dunk's own goal put Bos on their way when he changed the cross of Morgan Gibbs-White into his own net, when the former Wolves-Man nodded 2-0 in the corner of Anthony Elanga.
Elanga had his second assist of the game when he crossed Wood to go home late in the first half, and the duo combined again in the 64th minute, Elanga immediately drove the crossing to give Wood an easy finish.
Wood completed his hat trick from the penalty spot when Tariq Lamptey had meaningless Gibbs white from a corner polluted after the 69th minute, but forest was not done there.
Neco Williams shot in a sixth close after a goalmouth -scramble, after which Jota Silva completed the score after intercepting a gloomy pass by Bart Verbruggen.
The largest Premier League victory of Forest brings them on 47 points on 47 points with second place Arsenal, which is opposite Manchester City on Sunday. Brighton remains ninth, six points on drift of the top six.
Data Debrief: Forest Match Rare Five goal feat
The victory of Forest was their biggest in every league match since 1991, when they defeated Chelsea with the same score on city ground in the old first division.
In the meantime, this was Brighton's toughest league since they went to Middlesbrough 9-0 on the opening day of 1958-59, in the second layer.
7-Nottingham Forest enjoyed their biggest more competitive victory since the beating of Chelsea 7-0 in the top flight in April 1991. In the meantime, this was the toughest defeat of Brighton since a loss of 9-0 on Middlesbrough on the opening day of the 1958 season -59 in the second layer. Sounding. pic.twitter.com/vizsswnkue
– Optajoe (@Optajoe) February 1, 2025
Forest only became the second team in the history of Premier League that lost a match with five or more goals and then won their next game in the competition with the same margin.
Sheffield did this in November 1997 and lost 6-1 to Manchester United and then beat Bolton Wanderers 5-0.
Wood was the star when he became the first forest player to score a top-hat trick on the city since Nigel Clough son of the legendary manager Brian Clough-optegen Queens Park Rangers in December 1987.
He now has 17 Premier League goals this season, with only Stan Collymore in 1994-95 (22) once more for Forest in one campaign in the competition.
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