Oliver Glasner’s first trip back to Selhurst Park since leaving Crystal Palace ended in a 3-1 defeat for his Nottingham Forest side, and the Austrian summed up the afternoon with a single word: karma.
Glasner, who departed Palace in the summer after delivering FA Cup and Conference League glory, watched his Forest team dominate the opening half hour in south London before the match turned against them.
Dan Ndoye needed fewer than five minutes to put the visitors in front, and for the next 35 minutes the contest was one-way traffic.
Liam Delap had two excellent opportunities to double the lead and failed to take either. Palace then levelled out of seemingly nothing, Daichi Kamada finding the net against the run of play.
The turnaround was finished on the stroke of half-time, Jefferson Lerma bundling the ball home from a corner. Yeremy Pino added a third shortly before the hour mark to settle matters.
Glasner accepted afterwards that his players had not put the game beyond reach, while arguing they had done everything asked of them.
“We didn’t kill the game off and we should have done it, creating so many chances,” Glasner said.
“I played many games here [Selhurst Park] and I haven’t seen a team create so many chances.
“At the end, we did not convert them. We conceded the two goals before half time then we had two big chances but then we conceded the slapstick goal and we are 3-1 down.
“Today it looks like it is just me who is responsible for this, call it karma or whatever but it was like I didn’t deserve to win at Selhurst Park because the players did everything. Nobody to blame for anything, the effort was there and the quality was there.
“This performance will give us confidence even if it feels strange with the result. Crazy game but for us it is important not just to look at the result.”
Glasner had already described the encounter as “crazy” as he reflected on a match his side had controlled for long spells without converting that control into goals.
Forest now turn their attention to Sunday, when the defending champions Arsenal visit, a fixture that will test whether the confidence Glasner detected in defeat translates into points. Palace, meanwhile, head to France to face Lyon in the Europa League on Thursday before returning for the so-called M23 derby against Brighton next weekend.
