Forest avoid drop zone

REFEREE Graham Barber controversially disallowed an 88th minute Aston Villa 'goal' by Savo Milosevic to help keep Nottingham Forest out of the Premiership's bottom three ahead of the City Ground club's crucial take-over meeting on Monday night.

Milosevic thought he had finally scored only his eighth goal of the season when he clipped Dwight Yorke's pass beyond goalkeeper Mark Crossley but it was wiped out, presumably for a narrow offside decision against one of his team-mates.

Villa boss Brian Little was in earnest conversation with the Surrey official as the teams went down the tunnel at the end but Milosevic surprisingly put a friendly arm around the referee's shoulder as team-mates moved in to add their protests.

Player-manager Stuart Pearce, completing a two-match suspension, dropped lan Woan and recalled Nigel Clough, but Forest's passing was poor and they rarely threatened Villa goalkeeper Mark Bosnich.

Villa would have had the game wrapped up by half time but for a frustratingly familiar spate of misses by Milosevic. The big Yugoslav, caught fractionally offside when racing clear onto Andy Townsend's pass in the 10th minute, then headed high and wide of an empty goal two minutes later when Crossley's miscued clearance from an awkward back-pass flew straight to him at the edge of the penalty box.

Milosevic wasted an even better opportunity five minutes later when Yorke set him up perfectly after slipping between two defenders.

And even 17-goal top scorer Yorke caught the chance missing bug when he failed to put away Alan Wright's superb cross at the far post.

Yorke nearly atoned in brilliant style just before the break when he shrugged off a David Phillips challenge to fire powerfully into the side netting from an improbable angle. But Villa's luck was still out in the second half which they still largely controlled despite losing Steve Staunton with a pulled hamstring in the opening minute after the break.

Mark Draper's header was cleared off the line by Forest's Steve Chettle after great work by Milosevic, Yorke and Wright opened up the defence. And Crossley pulled off the save of the match from Yorke's drilled low drive before being let off by that late, late decision against Milosevic.