Nottingham Forest 3-0 Malmo: Dyche's side strengthen qualification hopes

Nottingham Forest kept their hopes of qualifying for the Europa League knockout stage alive after a dominant 3-0 win over Malmo on Thursday.

Ryan Yates, Arnaud Kalimuendo and Nikola Milenkovic all struck for Sean Dyche's side to move them up to 16th in the table, just two points off the top eight.

In a cagey opening, Nicolas Dominguez thumped a close-range header marginally wide of the left post, before later drilling a low effort straight down the middle at Melker Ellborg.

But Forest found the opener in the 27th minute, with Yates latching onto Milenkovic's blocked shot on the edge of the box to sidefoot his low effort into the bottom-right corner.

Ellbog denied Kalimuendo with a fine low stop shortly after, but the Frenchman netted his first Forest goal on the stroke of half-time, volleying in from close range after the goalkeeper had stretched to keep out Yates' header.

Malmo offered little in terms of a fightback and found themselves three goals down in the 58th minute. Milenkovic, who got in the way of Yates' unmarked volley, fired home from the edge of the six-yard box, with the goal surviving a VAR check.

From the restart, Callum Hudson-Odoi almost got Forest a fourth, bending an excellent shot from the left of the box against the top of the crossbar as the hosts strolled to the win.

Data Debrief: Dyche shuts up shop

Forest have found their groove under Dyche, extending their winning streak to three games in all competitions, scoring three goals in each victory.

But defensively, they have shored up, keeping a clean sheet in all three of their Europa League matches under Dyche so far.

Their shutout was not under much threat as Malmo managed just one on-target shot in the match, worth 0.06 expected goals (xG). The visitors also did not have a single touch in the opposition box. 

At the other end, Yates led the charge, and on another day could have had a hat-trick. He had a team-high four shots, three of which were on target, and also contested 10 duels (won six).