Nottingham Forest battle to goalless draw with Sturm Graz in Europa League

Nottingham Forest remain unbeaten away from home in the Europa League after they battled to a goalless draw with Sturm Graz at the Merkur Arena.

Sean Dyche also continued his undefeated start in Europe since he took over as Forest boss and ensured the Reds took a point back to England following their 2-0 victory over Porto last time out in the competition.

Forest spurned a golden opportunity to rubber-stamp their early dominance when Morgan Gibbs-White saw a first-half penalty saved by Oliver Christensen after Maurice Malone had a goal ruled out for offside.

The hosts grew into the contest and forced a couple of cagey saves from John Victor on his second start for the club.

The second half turned into a scrappy stop-start affair as both sides failed to register a shot on target after the interval but Nicolas Dominguez was denied the winner in stoppage time by the crossbar as both sides took a share of the spoils.

Dyche made seven changes to the side that drew 2-2 with Manchester United on Saturday, while Neco Williams, Nicolo Savona, Gibbs-White and Nikola Milenkovic all kept their places in the team.

Arjan Malic brought down Williams on the left edge of the box which handed Forest the first opportunity, Dominguez pulling it back to James McAtee who dragged his first-touch effort just wide of a post.

Forest controlled the early proceedings in Austria and almost had the opener but Ryan Yates saw a close-range header cleared off the line by Malic in the 17th minute.

Sturm Graz thought they took the lead before the half-hour mark with their first foray forward.

Otar Kiteishvili’s run put the Forest defence on the back foot and his strike was parried by Victor into the path of Malone who tapped into an empty net but was marginally offside.

Forest were given a chance to open the scoring from the penalty spot after Williams struck the ball off the hand of Emanuel Aiwu.

Gibbs-White assumed the responsibility but his spot-kick was stopped by Christensen who went low to his left to keep out the golden chance.

The Austrian’s attacking moments came few and far between but they looked dangerous when they did come forward, Tomi Horvat forcing Victor into parrying another effort.

Nineteen-year-old Zach Abbott was introduced by Dyche and looked lively but neither side showed any sort of attacking urgency after the interval as the game ticked into its final quarter.

Dyche brought Gibbs-White off for defender Murillo with 13 minutes to play as Forest set their stall out for a point away in Europe.

Forest almost snatched victory at the end when Dominguez let rip with a firecracker outside the box but he was denied by the crossbar.