Cooper sees no point in risking more injuries ahead of play-offs
HEAD COACH IS FOCUSED ON BIGGER PICTURE AFTER DRAW
BOSS Steve Cooper was keen not to risk picking up any more injuries as Nottingham Forest ended their league campaign with a 1-1 draw at Hull City.
With a place in the play-offs already secured, Cooper made seven changes to his starting 11 against the Tigers.
Brice Samba, Joe Worrall, James Garner and Philip Zinckernagel were the only players to keep their spots from Tuesday night’s defeat at Bournemouth.
Defender Steve Cook was left out of the squad, both because of the bloody gash he was left with following a clash of heads against the Cherries and for personal reasons, as his father suffered a cardiac arrest prior to that game.
Ryan Yates took a blow to the shoulder on the south coast and also missed out, as did Jack Colback, due to a groin problem.
Djed Spence, Brennan Johnson and Sam Surridge all came off the bench at the MKM Stadium. And Scott Mckenna was an unused substitute, having been ill in the buildup to the match.
“We had players missing through injury,” said Cooper.
“We’re not sure if they’ll be back. We’ll need to assess that.
“Yatesy has got a strain in his shoulder, which is a sore one. Cookie has had some stuff, including the big gash on his head. He wouldn’t have played because of his head, never mind some of the personal stuff that’s going on. “Scott has been ill. He was better on Saturday and managed to go on the bench. And Jack has had a groin problem.
“Djed was precautionary, really, because he’s had a tight calf for the last few games. And Brennan, we just thought was tired and needed to rest him - and we thought it would be better for him to finish the game, as it nearly proved to be.
“A lot of that stuff went to plan, in terms of not picking up any more injuries. What was really important for us was not decreasing our player availability for the play-offs.
“We could have run the risk with quite a few lads. We’ve had nine games in nearly a month. To think how hard that’s been, and the emotion of it, that’s when players get injured - and we have picked up injuries.
“There was no way we were going to run the risk of getting any more. You do anyway, by putting players on the pitch, but there would have been a few unnecessary risks, and we just didn’t want to do that.”
Johnson looked to have won it for the visitors when he scored a penalty late on. But Lewie Coyle immediately went down the other end and equalised for Hull.
The draw meant Forest finished fourth in the table and will face Sheffield United in the play-offs. They continue to be without Lewis Grabban, Keinan Davis and Max Lowe due to injury.
Although disappointed with how the game against Hull panned out, Cooper focused on the “bigger picture” at the final whistle.
“It’s not a disaster, fourth! From where we’ve been,” said Cooper.
“The game was just an okay one. We didn’t show enough threat and enough creativity in the final third.
“We had good ball and enough opportunity to make a difference in the final third, and we just didn’t show enough, really, on the day.
“We had enough attacking players on the pitch, and we could have really gone and made a difference, in terms of creating and scoring goals. We needed to step that part of it up.
“The build-up was fine, and we
got into the areas fine. We just needed to change the rhythm of attack and variety of attack. We didn’t quite have that on the day.
“The game opened up. We changed to a back-four, with Joe (Lolley) as a left-back.
“We thought we may as well go for the win - and if you lose, lose trying to win. You could see the chances we gave away, in terms of the counterattacks.
“In the end, we got the breakthrough, got the penalty. You’re thinking, okay, just manage out the next minute or so. And obviously we did the complete opposite, which was disappointing.
“But the bigger picture is, we were able to change the team today - a lot of it because of injuries.
“There was only really Brennan who we rested, everyone else was forced a little bit.
“We’re in good shape. We go into the play-offs in fourth position - the highest position and most points for a long, long time. There’s everything to feel good about.
“I’m naturally disappointed that we didn’t win the game, because that’s me.
“But I’m also not naive or narrowminded enough to not know that we are in great shape going into the play-offs now.”