Saints 2-3 Nottingham Forest

• St Mary’s Stadium
• Sunday 2nd November 2025
• Attendance: 2,293

Scorers:

Southampton 2

• Bashford (45+1)
• Simpson (71))

Nottingham Forest 3

• Nahikari García (41)
• Wellings (84, 86)

Third-placed Saints (not often you can write that) welcomed Nottingham Forest to Saint Mary’s for a WSL2 match. Former Saints midfielder Rachel Rowe was on the bench for Forest, as was last season’s loan player Vivianne Lia. As this was the Remembrance match for the women, we had the Last Post and a minute’s silence before the match. The silence was almost impeccably observed, just a couple of seats banged and one small kid crying and wailing, “I want to leave, I want to leave…”. I’m not sure if the kid thought that this was another outing for the men’s team, or if it was an omen for the match ahead, possibly driven by an in-depth knowledge of Nottingham Forest’s tactical approach.

The game started with Saints attacking the Chapel End and moving the ball around nicely. After 6 minutes, Nottingham Forest were taking the Russel Martin How many passes can we make after winning the ball back in our own box approach to clearing the ball. The ball eventually reached Forest’s Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah about 5 yards outside the box, and she rolled a lovely pass back towards the D, where Atlanta Primus was waiting. Primus released a rocket, but it bounced off the crossbar.

Nottingham Forest responded by closing the game down. Saints players were pressed, ran into and pushed, and their passing game fell apart. For the rest of the first half, both teams squeezed the space and each other as anti-football took over in a tight band in the middle of the pitch with all 20 outfield players squeezed between two back lines that were rarely more than 30 yards apart. It was one for the fans of the dark arts. If I had been watching on YouTube, I think a kip would have been in order. As it was I was kept from a snooze by the chaos on the pitch being matched by the chaos in the row in front of me, where between chants of “Red Army” a posse of kids were crawling over each other and hoovering up Haribo, chocolate buttons and Fredos, still it’s only 6 years until the patent for Ozempic runs out and the NHS will only have to pay a few quid a day to turn them back into normal sized people.

Surprisingly, there were no bookings in a 40-minute period, which was punctuated by endless fouls.

With 4 minutes to go until half-time, the Nottingham Forest centre back Mastaki hit a long ball up to their right winger. Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah was ahead of her defender and controlled the ball on the run before setting off for the Saints’ goal. Boye-Hlorkah’s shot was hit firmly towards Fran Stenson in the Southampton goal. The shot was easily blocked, but was not held, and it dribbled off the keeper to the top of the 6-yard box. Nahikari García was the only Forest player who was following in, and she had the easy task of putting the ball past Stenson, who was still recovering her position from the original save. Southampton 0 Nottingham Forest 1.

It was time for karma to intervene a minute or two later. Forest full back Stapleton dealt with a Saints attack by pushing over Ellie Brazil a few yards from the corner flag on the Saints’ left. Tara Bourne whipped the free kick in low, looking as though it would bounce round about the corner of the 6-yard box. A posse of Saints players rushed to meet the ball, and just before the bounce, Mary Bashford got the touch that sent the ball beyond Emily Batty in the Forest Goal.

Half Time: Southampton 1 Nottingham Forest 1.

Maybe the referee had forgotten to take her cards out with her in the first half, as she wasted no time in booking Nahikari Garcia for pulling down Bashford a minute after the start of the second half. The resulting free kick was hit optimistically from about 35 yards at the Forest goal, but was too high to concern the keeper. Forest clearly thought that we should try again and obliged by pulling another Saints player down yards from where the previous kick had been. This time, the ball was hit towards the far corner of the 6-yard box, tantalisingly close to a couple of onrushing forwards, but out for a goal kick.

A corner on Saints’ right was floated in long and high towards Jess Simpson, who was near the far corner of the 6-yard box. It was hard to tell if the ball was a little too high for Simpson or if the Forest defender got enough of a push on Simpson, but the contact was probably not quite what the Saints left back would have liked. The ball wafted up into the air towards the goal. Forest’s average height keeper, Emily Batty, came for it, but could not stretch enough to stop the ball looping into the top corner. Saints 2, Tricky Trees 1.

The goal appeared to make the players from both teams realise that they were all a bit knackered, and the game opened up. Saints looked to be making the most of the newfound space, but it felt like there were goals left in the game, and either team could score them.

Both managers saw this and decided to make changes. Simon Parker had already swapped Aimee Palmer for Atlanta Primus and made three more defensive swaps, bringing on Mott, Edwards and Watts for Simpson, Ferguson and Brazil. Carly Davis in the Forest dugout, who had earlier swapped Nahikari Garcia for former Saint Rachel Rowe, went the opposite way and swapped out attacking players Smith and Claypole and Hamilton and Wellings.

A long ball from Forest’s back line was contested in midfield with Rachel Rowe gaining control and hitting a through ball to Charlie Wellings on the top of the 18-yard box. Wellings let the ball roll onto her right foot, and her first touch was to smack the ball from 15 yards between Stenson and her right-hand post. Southampton 2 Forest 2.

Forest smelt blood, and it was carbon copy time. Another long ball, this time from the keeper, was contested in midfield with Rachel Rowe gaining control again. Rowe took the ball forward 5 yards and picked out Charlie Wellings, making the same run as before. Wellings was a few yards further back than before, and the gap between Stenson and her right-hand post was tighter, but the result was the same. Southampton 2 Forest 3.

Teams:

Southampton:

• 22 F Stenson
• 23 M Collet
• 5 A Goddard
• 6 T Bourne
• 19 J Simpson sub I Watts (83)
• 8 C Peplow
• 14 M Bashford sub A Akpan (91)
• 11 A Ferguson sub M Mott (83)
• 20 A Primus (capt) sub A Goddard (79)
• 7 E Brazil Sub M Edwards (83)

Subs:

• 15 E Hack
• 3 M Mott
• 4 A Akpan
• 27 I Watts
• 66 A Palmer
• 12 M Edwards
• 31 K Prout
• 35 E Roberts

Nottingham Forest:

• 1 E Batty
• 2 J Stapleton
• 16 M Green (capt)
• 5 C Mustaki
• 23 K Smith sub Hamilton (83)
• 8 A Rodgers
• 17 F Thomas
• 12 E Hed
• 21 Nihikari Garcia sub R Rowe (59)
• 10 A Claypole sub Wellings (83)
• 33 C Boye-Hlorkah.

Subs:

• 11 T Almqvist
• 29 G Ferguson
• 18 C Hamilton
• 22 C Howe
• 3 N Johnson
• 7 V Lia
• 15 H Olding,
• 13 R Rowe
• 14 C Wellings

Yellow cards: Garcia (46), Stapleton (53), Green (82)