Nottingham Forest looked reasonably impressive as they held Premiership side Everton to a 1-1 draw at the City Ground.

The team from Merseyside was a mixture of youth and first-team players but included the likes of Phil Neville, Joleon Lescott, Andy Van Der Meyde and Mikel Arteta.

Van Der Meyde and Arteta were both withrawn inside the first 30 minutes through injury as Everton started to get their grip on the game. Former Plymouth left-back Dan Gosling forced Paul Smith into tipping over the bar from distance and they were unlucky not to take the lead just before the break when Kieren Agard hit the post.

Forest failed to create any real clear cut chances with Robert Earnshaw's overhead kick probably the pick of the action but it was never really close to testing Iain Turner in the Toffee's goal.

The Reds were looking comfortable on the ball and were gaining more and more confidence as the game went on. Shortly after the interval, Forest were able to take the lead.

Robert Earnshaw, who looked sharp and eager, fed Lewis McGugan just on the right hand side of the penalty area. His fastly struck low cross was diverted into his own net by Nuno Valente to make it 1-0 to Forest. Chants of "1-0 to the famous team" rang out from the A-Block as Reds fans took full advantage of the team's lead.

It wasn't to last long though when 16-year-old Jose Baxter picked the ball up just outside the penalty area and struck a crisp left-footed strike into the top corner to give Smith no chance. The 2,000 or so Everton supporters went wild and rightly so for a 16-year-old who could have a good future in the English game. Jim Baxter would have been proud of the that goal.

Steven Pienaar, Yakubu and Leighton Baines all came on for Everton with about ten minutes remaining but it was Forest who looked capable of getting a match winning goal if any. A draw was probably a fair reflection and all-in-all a promising performance which saw home debuts to Andrew Cole, Robert Earnshaw, Stephen Hughes and Guy Moussi.

MOTM: Tough call but I'm going to go for Stephen Hughes purely because he's probably worth a one-year deal following a composed performance in the middle of the park.