LONDON: Nottingham Forest edged off the bottom of the Premier League by holding out for a 0-0 draw at Brighton & Hove Albion as Wilfried Zaha gave Crystal Palace a 2-1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers on Tuesday.

Forest still have only one win on their return to the top flight for the first time in 23 years, but were grateful to escape the Amex with a point after Brighton dominated throughout.

The Seagulls are still waiting for their first win under new boss Roberto de Zerbi and it was a familiar failing that cost Brighton as they missed a series of chances to claim the three points.

Leandro Trossard hit the bar in the first half, while Dean Henderson twice denied the Belgian international and made a fine late save from Pascal Gross.

“I don’t want to speak about the result as if it’s unfair or unlucky,” said De Zerbi. “We have to work on the last 20 metres for sure, to decide the best solution in the last 25 metres and to work on creating more solutions.”

Forest failed to muster a single shot on target but just a second clean sheet of the season was enough to provisionally lift Steve Cooper’s men a point above Leicester City at the foot of the table.

“It’s progress,” said Cooper. “If we take the game in isolation then we have to be happy with a point.”

Wolves remain just one point above the bottom three after blowing the lead at Selhurst Park.

Adama Traore headed in Hugo Bueno’s cross for just Wolves fifth league goal in 11 games this season just after the half hour mark.

In all three of Palace’s wins this season they have come from behind and the Eagles soared in the second half once Eberechi Eze nodded in at the back post from Michael Olise’s cross.

Zaha completed the comeback when he coolly collected Odsonne Edouard’s pass to slot past Jose Sa 20 minutes from time.

Victory lifts Patrick Vieira’s men up to 10th.

“To perform in the Premier League this is part of the game, to show resilience and character. Nobody hid at 1-0 down,” said Vieira. “We still have a long way to go. We have young players who need to learn the game. Everything wasn’t perfect today, but we showed some good elements and can build on that.”

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2022