Nottingham Forest show class after Newcastle defeat but make Dean Henderson 'pepper' claim

Steve Cooper has admitted that Newcastle United were the 'better team' and 'deserved' to beat his Nottingham Forest side on the opening day of the new season.

Second-half goals from Fabian Schar and Callum Wilson gave Newcastle a 2-0 win against newly-promoted Forest at St James' Park on Saturday and, in truth, the Magpies should have won the game by a bigger margin. Newcastle, after all, had 61% possession, 23 shots and 11 corners in the hosts' most dominant Premier League display in years.

Forest, in contrast, failed to test debutant Nick Pope in the Newcastle goal as the visitors started their first top-flight campaign in 23 years with a defeat. Cooper certainly had no complaints after the game, but was keen to point out that it took a screamer from Schar for Newcastle to finally break the deadlock before the hour mark.

"Newcastle deserved to win the game," the Forest boss told reporters. "They were the better team. We will always show respect to that.

"They had a lot of the ball, they had a lot of territory, and, overall, I thought we were OK with that. It's not something we want too much, but they got into a lot of good areas and a lot of good positions but didn't really pepper Dean [Henderson] in goal and it's taken a 25-yarder to beat us.

"Where we weren't right was our in possession game. We turned the ball over too much and we didn't make enough passes when we could.

"In the end, that's cost us even with the two goals. I know the first goal came from a corner in the second phase, but the way we gave the ball up before that was not the team we want to be so that's the bit, really, that I'm thinking about that we fell short in our performance and we have to live and learn from that."