Oliver Glasner cleared Dean Henderson of blame after the Crystal Palace goalkeeper’s second-half blunder gave Nottingham Forest a hard-fought win. Henderson allowed Chris Wood’s first goal to slip through on his desperation dive, extending Palace’s miserable start to the season.

The game was in the balance when Wood tried his luck from 20 yards after Trevoh Chalobah had turned away a hopeful ball from Àlex Moreno with a weak header. But Henderson was slow to settle and then allowed Wood’s shot to go under his right arm, just six days after he returned to England’s starting line-up for the Nations League win in Finland.

“He tried to apologize but I wouldn’t let him,” said the Crystal Palace manager. “You can’t blame anyone. He made so many big saves for us this season and last. It happens. It’s sport and we’re all human.

“He doesn’t have to apologize for the mistake. It’s about how we deal with the error. I don’t expect an easy game against Tottenham (on Sunday), they are very attacking, we know the challenges we face, so we will need Dean and he will definitely help us.”

Wood keeps good company these days. His fifth goal of the season means only Erling Haaland and Cole Palmer have scored more than the 16 Premier League goals he has scored since Nuno Espírito Santo took charge at the City Ground just before last Christmas.

The New Zealand striker will be 33 when Nuno, who is missing from the sidelines here due to a three-match ban, celebrates his anniversary, but they will certainly be celebrating. Not least thanks to Wood’s goals, Forest is happily nestled in eighth place in the table.

In stark contrast, Palace remains in the relegation zone after the worst start to a Premier League season overall.

Wood had already seen three iron chances slip away in the first half before firing the shot that won the game. With this goal, he joins Bryan Roy and Stan Collymore as the only players to reach the 20-goal mark in the Premier League for Forest. His celebration didn’t end there, as he revealed that he was expecting to become a father again, with the usual thumb-in-mouth, ball-up-t-shirt routine for footballers.

“Amazing,” said Nuno. “We are happy about him, not just about his goals. (It’s) all his actions in the game, how he leads the team and what impact he has in the locker room. He is a very experienced player who the young boys can learn from.”

With Nuno sitting in a stand that also included suspended captains Morgan Gibbs-White and James Ward-Prowse, while owner Evangelos Marinakis is serving a five-match stadium ban, there was a sense of injustice among Forest fans that energized the start of her team fired up.

However, there was a hole in front of the Forest defense that Palace sniffed into and almost capitalized on in the early stages. Eberichi Eze, playing in a free role just past Eddie Nketiah or even ahead of Eddie Nketiah at times, marched into this space and curled a 20-yarder just wide of the goal.

Forest had better possession but Nketiah almost scored when he forced his way into the same open area where neither Ryan Yates nor Nicolás Domínguez made their defensive presence known, and the £25m Arsenal signing did deflected his shot against the outside of a post.

Yates also hit the woodwork at the other end with a header and just after half-time Eze Matz forced Sels into a great fingertip save, with the ball bouncing off the top of the crossbar.

Moreno then came to Forest’s aid when he threw his body in the way of Will Hughes’ shot after Nketiah brilliantly shot the ball down the left wing and pulled it back.

Then Wood’s big moment came at Henderson’s expense. God knows he had knocked on the door often enough. Another win on Friday at Leicester and Forest would finish fifth. Really heady times.