Don’t really get the negativity. Thought we played well from minute 5 up to minute 80 pulling off a great comeback in the process. Was it all perfect, obviously not, but I wasn’t expecting this place to remain all doom and gloom. Clear signs we are getting better and looking more up to speed.
I agree.
Those first two goals is perhaps best seen as a separate part of the story. One due to bad decisions and organisation on a ball loss high on the pitch following an offensive setpiece, the other a badly executed defensive play on a corner. Both of which have been recurring issues, so you can't put it down to bad luck. But they can't define the performance in the game as a whole either.
For the rest of the game (or at least until the 80-minute mark, as you say), Forest almost entirely ceded the initiative, dropping very low. The key here is how we handled that, in a situation of being down by two, and I think there are a lot of positives there. We scored three times against a deep, well-organised defence, which pretty much amounts to ripping them apart. They threw everything they had at thwarting us in a type of game that is supposed to be our biggest weakness, and they couldn't.
For once, we also matched our xG (2.9, Opta). It's noticeable also that almost every shot we had that didn't miss the goal or were blocked had a higher Post Shot xG than xG, meaning they were better than average efforts.
Individually, I thought the match was a step in the right direction for most of the players. Bruno was epic. Rashford had key involvements on all three goals. Casemiro looked a lot more like his usual self than in the first two games. Martial on the other hand was decidedly rusty - couldn't get his feet to play along. Not too surprising I guess, after having missed the whole pre-season.