Igor Jesus struck late to snatch Nottingham Forest a 2-1 win over Utrecht in the Europa League and boost their automatic qualification hopes.

Forest started brightly, with Callum Hudson-Odoi twice forcing saves out of Vasilios Barkas inside the opening seven minutes before Oleksandr Zinchenko dragged well wide from close range shortly after.

Morato also saw an effort cleared off the line, and Douglas Luiz's shot was parried away before the momentum swung in the hosts' favour when John Victor was called into action to deny Miguel Rodriguez.

Forest came out fighting in the second and took the lead seven minutes after the break when Arnaud Kalimuendo's low drive across goal nestled into the bottom-right corner.

Kalimuendo hit the side netting shortly after, and substitute Mike van der Hoorn punished Forest's wasted chances in the 73rd minute by guiding a tight-angled header in from Souffian El Karouani's free-kick.

And just when it looked like the game was heading for a draw, Dan Ndoye's header was only pushed away by Barkas, and Jesus was on hand to slide it through the goalkeeper's legs after less than two minutes on the pitch to push Forest up to eighth in the table.

Data Debrief: Forest open up to get vital win

Prior to this match, all five of Forest's goals under Sean Dyche had come from set-pieces, and they had not conceded a single such goal under him.

Both of those runs were broken on Thursday, though Forest will feel they deserved the victory after the pressure they applied. Their 19 attempts were worth 1.56 expected goals (xG) to Utrecht's 0.75 xG from 10 shots.

Kalimuendo, meanwhile, is the first Forest player to score in successive games for the club in major European competition since Peter Davenport in November 1983.