Anton Stach scored a dramatic 88th-minute winner as Leeds United overcame Nottingham Forest 1-0 at the City Ground on the opening weekend of the Premier League.

Leeds struggled for long periods of the match and could have fallen behind to two headed chances either side of half time, only for Nikola Milenkovic to be denied by the post before Igor Jesus failed to find the target from close range.

Tarik Muharemovic forced Matz Sels into an important save in the 70th minute before Stach produced a moment of magic with a free-kick from just outside the left corner of the box, leaving Oliver Glasner to rue a defeat in his first game in charge of Forest.

The hosts were more dangerous in the first half and were denied an opener when Igor Jesus' header was clawed out of the bottom-right corner by James Trafford with 17 minutes played.

One minute later, referee Robert Jones showed Ola Aina a yellow card after his lunge on James Justin, with the VAR determining that no further action was required – much to the frustration of the Leeds bench.

Harry Wilson had a goal ruled out for scoring from an offside position when he could have left it for the onside Dominic Calvert-Lewin, but only the woodwork stopped Leeds from going into the break behind to Milenkovic's header.

Igor Jesus failed to steer his back-post chance on target in the 55th minute and Leeds started to grow in confidence, with Sels having to spring brilliantly to his left to keep Muharemovic's header out with 20 minutes remaining.

Forest were unable to hang on until the final whistle, though, as Stach placed his free-kick into the bottom-left corner with too much power for Sels to keep it out despite getting the goalkeeper getting a hand to the ball.

Morgan Gibbs-White had a chance to salvage a point with a 20-yard free-kick from a central position in stoppage time, but he was unable to find the target.

ANTON'S STUNNER WINS IT!! pic.twitter.com/4KD1U6X1g9

— Leeds United (@LUFC) August 22, 2026

Work to do for Glasner after late defeat

Glasner agreed to become Forest's fifth head coach in under a year after the club dispensed with the services of Vitor Pereira in July.

Pereira managed to steer them away from relegation and Glasner will likely need more time than his four predecessors got if he is to guide Forest back up the table this season.

They lacked cohesion despite controlling prolonged periods of the game against Leeds, only managing to hit the target twice from their 12 efforts on goal, which had a cumulative expected goals (xG) value of 0.65.

That total was still higher than Leeds' 0.49 xG, and Forest also had more of the possession (55.2%), so they might feel unfortunate to have emerged empty-handed.

There were some signs that Glasner's rapid ball progression was taking hold, particularly through centre-back Murillo and Ibrahim Sangare in midfield – the duo combined for 19 line-breaking passes, with five of the Brazilian's nine coming in the final third.

And Forest do at least have a chance to make amends for their late defeat when the two teams meet again at the City Ground on Tuesday in the second round of the EFL Cup.