Chris Wood may have dedicated his winning goal for Nottingham Forest against Crystal Palace to his pregnant wife, but he had plenty of other reasons to celebrate on Monday night.
Wood's 65th-minute strike means that only Manchester City's Erling Haaland (23) and Cole Palmer of Chelsea (22) have more Premier League goals than the 16 he has scored since Nuno Espirito Santo took charge at the City Ground just before last Christmas.
Fine goalscoring form for Chris Wood 😤
— Premier League (@premierleague) October 21, 2024
He has the joint-third highest amount of goals scored since December 2023 🗓️ pic.twitter.com/fgsVYgcH93
And the New Zealand international's fifth goal of the season also saw him become only the third player to score 20 or more goals for Forest in the Premier League, after Bryan Roy (24) and Stan Collymore (22).
"We found out that my wife is pregnant a couple of days ago so that's the announcement to the world," Wood said after Forest's first home league win of the season.
"We are having a baby girl so I am excited to welcome her into the world."
Impressively, Wood has scored seven of Forest's last 10 Premier League goals and five of their eight this season. That means Wood is responsible for scoring 63 per cent of Forest's 2024/25 goals. Only Liam Delap, with 67 per cent, has scored a higher share of a team's total goals this season, netting four of Ipswich Town's six.
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Wood was quick to praise both the influence of head coach Nuno and his team-mates in helping him reach the 20-goal mark for Forest.
"I have got the backing of Nuno and it is fantastic to have a manager right behind you," he added. "We have a great team that make a lot of chances and you have to be ready to put them in the back of the net.
"We knew that we needed that home win to get a kickstart for the season, and thankfully we got it tonight. It is about doing what we have been doing all season and being consistent with things. We managed to get the goal and then to also see it out at the end.
"It's fantastic to get a win under the lights here at the City Ground, the crowd got us over the line.
"Now we've got to keep going and looking forward. We've got a big game [at Leicester City] on Friday. Anything can happen."
