Substitute Noni Madueke's Deflected 80th-Minute Winner Gives Arsenal a 1-0 Win at Nottingham Forest

NOTTINGHAM, England · SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2026

Champions are not supposed to look this uncomfortable, but they are supposed to win games exactly like this one. Arsenal beat Nottingham Forest 1-0 at the City Ground on Sunday, in a Premier League Matchday 7 match they dominated without ever really playing well in, and the whole afternoon turned on a substitute, a deflection and ten minutes of desperate defending at the end. Sky Sports, in its match report, put the essential fact first: Arsenal's only shot on target proved enough. Noni Madueke, on at half-time, cut in from the left in the 80th minute, fired towards goal, and watched his effort strike Jair Cunha, wrong-foot Matz Sels and settle a game that for 80 minutes had looked like another entry in Mikel Arteta's miserable recent history at this ground — before this, as football.london recorded, he had won just one of his five visits to Forest as Arsenal manager, and the last two had finished goalless.

All of the ball, none of the threat

The first half was a possession statistic in search of a football match. NBC Sports' live account had Arsenal hovering around 75 per cent of the ball, and the champions spent it passing in front of a Forest side perfectly happy to let them. Neither team managed a shot on target before the break. Forest, missing the injured Morgan Gibbs-White, produced the first real opening after 20 minutes when Riccardo Calafiori gave the ball away and Dan Ndoye drove a low effort that was touched away for a corner — Arsenal's own account of the match described David Raya tipping it round the post — while at the other end Gabriel's improvised effort from a corner was cleared almost off the line by Ousmane Diomande, and Kai Havertz headed over from a Declan Rice free-kick. That, for 45 minutes, was the lot: two organised teams, one very patient crowd, and a scoreline that suited the home side far more than the champions.

Arteta acted at half-time, and the change that decided the match was made then. Eberechi Eze, handed a rare league start, made way for Madueke, and the winger explained afterwards, in comments carried by NBC Sports, exactly what his manager had asked of him: attack the opposition, be dangerous, be himself, and be good defensively. Madueke said that to NBC Sports after the match. It still took most of the second half for the instruction to pay. Forest, to their credit, were the brighter side early in the half — Liam Delap, leading the line and occupying Arsenal's centre-backs all afternoon, saw an effort deflected into the side netting, and the home crowd began to believe a point, at least, was theirs to lose.

Timber squares it, Rice skies it, Madueke settles it

Arteta went again on 66 minutes, sending on Jurrien Timber, Viktor Gyokeres and Mikel Merino for Ben White, Havertz and Bruno Guimaraes, and within five minutes the substitutes had built the best move of the match. Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka combined to release Timber down the right, the full-back squared the ball for Rice in space inside the box, and Rice — under no pressure at all — hammered it over the bar. Opta Analyst's account of the match called it the moment Arsenal's afternoon threatened to curdle completely, and Rice's reaction told the same story. A champions' side that wastes its one clean chance at the City Ground usually pays for it.

This one did not, because Madueke refused to let the game drift. With 10 minutes left, Rice played the ball out to him on the left — Sportradar's fixture record credits Rice with the assist — and Madueke did the thing he had been sent on to do. He explained the goal himself afterwards, in his NBC Sports interview: he had beaten his man on the outside a few times, so he figured he would go inside and let it rip. Those were Madueke's own words to NBC Sports. The shot clipped Cunha on its way through, Sels was left moving the wrong way, and Arsenal finally had the goal their possession had promised and their finishing had spent 80 minutes refusing to deliver. It was, as Sky Sports noted, their first shot on target of the entire match. One shot on target, one goal, and a bench emptying in celebration in front of the away end.

Ten minutes of siege

What followed was the part of the win Arsenal will value most, because Forest threw everything at the equaliser and nearly found it three times. On 89 minutes Callum Hudson-Odoi set up Chris Wood, on as a substitute, and Rice got back to block the striker's shot — Sky Sports' key-moments account recorded the block, and NBC Sports described Rice lunging to cut out the effort just as Wood shaped to finish. Two minutes into stoppage time, Murillo — playing his 100th game for Forest, as Opta Analyst noted — set off on a superb solo run through the Arsenal half and curled his shot narrowly wide. And a minute later Ezri Konsa timed the challenge of the afternoon, denying Delap as the striker bore down on goal, to close the game out. Forest had given the champions a genuine scare with a quarter of the ball; they finished with nothing, again.

What it leaves behind

The table now reads kindly for Arsenal and cruelly for Forest, and both pictures are source-verified rather than decorative. Sky Sports reported the result takes Arsenal to 18 points from seven matches, back up to second place — above Brighton, 5-0 winners over Crystal Palace earlier on Sunday — and three points behind leaders Manchester City, who have won all seven of their games. For Forest, the same report recorded a drop into the relegation zone, a third straight league defeat — the PA report of the match, carried by the Gazette, noted it was also a third 1-0 home defeat of the season — and a side still waiting for its first home league goal of the campaign under Oliver Glasner. That last fact is the one that explains the City Ground's mood at full time: Forest defended well enough to take something, created the better late chances, and still lost, because at this level a team that cannot score at home eventually runs out of afternoons.

Madueke, named player of the match, summed up the visitors' view of it in his NBC Sports interview: “Man, this place is so hard to come to, everybody knows it. They make it so difficult for you. We showed grit, determination, and I think we showed a champion's spirit here. I'm really pleased.” Madueke said that to NBC Sports at full time, and he placed the win in the context of the season, too: “The Premier League can shock you. We had a shock at Brighton and we had to come put it right.” That was also Madueke to NBC Sports. Arsenal now travel to Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Wednesday with their title pursuit intact and their hardest kind of win banked — the ugly one, on a ground that has tormented them, settled by the substitute and sealed by two blocks. Championships are built out of afternoons like this far more often than out of the beautiful ones.