Nottingham Forest 1-0 Arsenal: Late Grabban goal dumps sloppy Gunners out of FA Cup

London, January 10: Arsenal were eliminated at the third-round stage of the FA Cup for only the second time in 26 seasons after Lewis Grabban secured Nottingham Forest a late 1-0 win on Sunday.

Mikel Arteta returned to the bench after a bout of coronavirus forced him to miss arguably their best performance of the season in the 2-1 defeat to Manchester City last weekend.

But he will not have been happy with what he saw at the City Ground, with the Gunners' lethargy and lack of inspiration in the early stages a sign of things to come.

The Premier League side were twice fortunate not to fall behind in the second half, but their luck finally ran out seven minutes from time, substitute Grabban getting the winner.

Neither side impressed in a largely dull first half, with the only half chance falling to Eddie Nketiah, whose left-footed effort deflected into the side-netting.

One of the more notable occurrences in the first half was the withdrawal of Nuno Tavares after a woefully sloppy 34 minutes – the left-back petulantly throwing his gloves to the ground in response.

Forest carved out their first opportunity soon after the break, Brennan Johnson darting away from Rob Holding and squaring the ball to Philip Zinckernagel, whose first-time effort was saved by Bernd Leno.

Nketiah then badly miscued a header at the other end to let Forest off the hook, before Leno was again called into action, keeping James Garner's 30-yard free-kick out of the top corner.

Leno was helpless late on, however, as Ryan Yates' teasing cross was turned in by Grabban, with Arsenal unable to claw back the deficit.