Poor Nottingham Forest. And, especially, poor Nikola Milenkovic. It would be unfair to say that Brentford fluked a win in the 100th Premier League game at the Getch Community Stadium but Forest had 15 shots to their six and have every right to wonder why luck has deserted them so absolutely this season. Only one of Brentford’s goals went down as an own-goal, but both went in after hefty deflections off Milenkovic. A sixth successive defeat for Forest in games played on Hallowe’en must have them wondering about curses and an inexplicable run of misfortune.

For both sides there has been a sense that things might have been better than the table suggests. No side has underperformed their xG as significantly as Forest, who went into the weekend third in Opta’s expected table but third-bottom in real life. Part of their issue has been the form of Liam Delap, who arrived in the summer from Chelsea for £50m, but has scored just once since. The 23-year-old is beginning to look like another victim of Chelsea’s trading model. Confidence shot, the purposeful striker of his Ipswich days has become a mess of flailing arms and wild finishing. By the time he was withdrawn 20 minutes into the second half, Delap had had three shots, none on target.

Delap wasn’t the only culprit on Saturday. Ryan Yates, having come off the bench at half-time, headed an extremely presentable opportunity over. None of Morgan Gibbs-White’s three efforts were on target. The closest Forest came was James McAtee’s first-half effort, drifting in from the right, only for Caoimhín Kelleher to save his curled effort. No Premier League side has scored fewer goals than Forest this season. The big problem is that missing chances can become a habit. A lack of belief in front of goal can become self-perpetuating, and it was evident in the second half that, even as Forest enjoyed significant territorial advantage, there was a frenzied, over-anxious edge to much of their attacking play. Again and again the ball would be delivered into the box only for a clumsy barge or foul to lift the pressure.

At other clubs, it might be assumed that consistent performances, even if results are struggling to catch up, would sustain a manager. Oliver Glasner has a fine track record and, chance conversion aside, hasn’t done much wrong at Forest. But Forest’s owner Evangelos Marinakis is notoriously impatient. Good underlying numbers aren’t likely to stay his trigger finger for long.

Brentford’s case is less extreme, but there is something baffling in the fact that this was their first win since the 3-0 victory over Chelsea before the last international break. A run of 12 draws in their 18 Premier League games before this one speaks of a side that could easily be even better off than they already are with even slightly better finishing. That’s the Brentford conundrum this season: they’re playing well, have a very good chance of qualifying for Europe for the first time in their history, and yet there’s been a feeling that they’ve been leaving points behind.

But who needs finishing when the opposition are as generous as this? For Forest the opening goal followed a familiar pattern. It wasn’t quite like their previous away game at Crystal Palace, when it felt an affront to the laws of the universe that they went in behind at half-time, but they had seemed comfortable when, on the half hour, Murillo misjudged a through-ball, setting Dango Ouattara free. The Burkina Faso forward’s cross then looped off Milenkovic and over a wrong-footed Matz Sels.

Mathias Jensen hit the bar with a first-half free-kick and, if Brentford created little more than that, they rarely seemed under much pressure. The second to settle the game came with 14 minutes remaining, Jaidon Anthony breaking down the right and crossing low for Igor Thiago, his finish deflecting in via the luckless Milenkovic and the underside of the bar.

It sounds facile to say that apart from the fact they’re not scoring goals and they keep on helping the ball into their own net, Forest are fine, but it’s true. Unless morale disintegrates completely, they should be fine. The ball will start running for them. But for now the fates remain arrayed against them.