The STōK Cae Ras has hosted plenty of noisy nights, but this one had that rare cup quality where the noise doesn’t just sit in the stands, it leaks into the football. Wrexham rode that wave for long stretches, Nottingham Forest spent most of the evening trying to calm it down with possession, and in the end the tie went the full distance before Arthur Okonkwo’s gloves pushed Wrexham into the fourth round on penalties.
Forest arrived with the profile, the Premier League bodies and the expectation, but also with a selection that immediately raised eyebrows. Sean Dyche made eight changes from the midweek league win at West Ham, and for 45 minutes it looked like a side still learning one another’s habits. Wrexham, in contrast, played like a team that knew exactly what the night demanded: organised without the ball, direct when the trigger appeared, and ruthless the moment Forest gave them oxygen.
Forest even had an early moment that hinted they could take control, only for a goal to be ruled out for handball. That became the warning shot Wrexham needed. On 37 minutes, Liberato Cacace struck to put the hosts in front, and before Forest had finished re-lacing their composure, Ollie Rathbone made it two on 40 minutes. Two punches in three minutes, and suddenly the tie wasn’t a romantic subplot. It was the main story.
Forest’s response was predictable in shape and volume. They had the ball, they pushed higher, they began to pen Wrexham into longer defensive sequences, but Wrexham kept winning the ugly parts of the game: second balls, duels, blocks, clearances, the constant little collisions that turn “pressure” into “frustration”. At half-time it was 2-0 and Forest were the side carrying the anxiety.
Dyche tried to flip the script after the break with a triple change, and Forest did look sharper, quicker and more purposeful. Their reward arrived on 64 minutes when Igor Jesus pulled one back and finally gave Forest a foothold that didn’t feel like guesswork. The momentum was swinging, but Wrexham refused to accept the swing as fate. On 74 minutes, Dominic Hyam powered in a third, restoring the two-goal cushion and re-igniting the belief around the ground that the upset could be completed in ninety.
That belief then had to survive Forest’s best spell of the match. Callum Hudson-Odoi, off the bench, changed the temperature with direct running and better final actions. He made it 3-2 on 76 minutes, and from there it felt like Forest were playing in a single direction, wave after wave, pushing Wrexham deeper and forcing repeated last-ditch defending. Wrexham were still a threat in flashes, but the key difference was Forest were now landing chances at a rate Wrexham couldn’t keep matching.
The equaliser came late and it came with the kind of inevitability that only arrives after sustained pressure. Hudson-Odoi struck again on 89 minutes to make it 3-3, completing his brace and dragging the tie into extra time. Wrexham, who had twice held a two-goal lead, now had to find another emotional gear just to stay upright.
Extra time was raw. The spaces opened, legs heavy, decision-making frayed at the edges. Forest continued to create, Wrexham continued to resist, and Okonkwo continued to be central to that resistance. Neither side found the winner, which meant the night had one last twist: penalties.
Wrexham held their nerve from the spot, and Okonkwo became the headline act, saving twice in the shootout, including the final stop that sealed it. Jay Rodriguez converted the decisive penalty as Wrexham won 4-3, sending the home end into scenes that will be replayed for years.
The match stats tell you two truths at once: Forest controlled the ball, Wrexham controlled the fight. Forest had 62.6% possession to Wrexham’s 37.4% and attempted 30 shots to Wrexham’s 17, with 10 on target to Wrexham’s seven. Forest also camped higher, recording 57 touches in the opposition box compared to Wrexham’s 23, and completed 649 accurate passes to Wrexham’s 343. But Wrexham were not passive passengers. They won the corner count 8-7, missed two big chances to Forest’s zero, and, crucially, dominated the duel count 80-59. They also threw their bodies in front of everything: 12 blocks to Forest’s two, and 54 clearances to Forest’s 17. Okonkwo finished with seven saves, which underlines just how much Forest pushed and how much Wrexham had to absorb.
For Nottingham Forest, this was more than a cup exit. It was a stress test of where they are right now, and it lands at an awkward time for Sean Dyche. His remit since arriving has been stability, but the recent run has kept the pressure cooker on a simmer. Across the last seven games in all competitions, Forest have two wins, one draw and four defeats, and this draw that ends in penalties goes down as elimination. In the league, they are hovering just above the relegation line, and nights like this, where the rotation doesn’t click and the recovery act comes too late, sharpen the questions around decision-making as much as they do around results.
And at this club, that matters. Evangelos Marinakis is not an owner known for long silences when momentum turns sour. Forest have already lived through quick-fire changes in the recent past, and even this season has had that air of a rolling audition rather than a settled project. That doesn’t mean Dyche is on borrowed time, but it does mean every slide feels steeper, every stumble feels louder, and a cup shock like this doesn’t just dent confidence, it adds another weight to a manager’s week.
For Wrexham, it is a night that validates their rise in the most public way possible. They didn’t just cling on and hope. They scored three, they earned the right to defend, they matched a Premier League side physically, and when the tie came down to nerve, they had more of it. They are into the fourth round, and nobody who watched this will be in any rush to draw them next.
