"Players are not" - Boss of Leeds United's relegation rivals makes frank admission with call after 'sad' blow
The boss of one of Leeds United’s relegation-battling rivals has made a frank admission after a sad setback.
Boss Vitor Pereira has made a frank admission about his Nottingham Forest side but with a determined rallying call after a “sad” blow.
Forest are still battling to avoid Premier League relegation with just three games remaining yet the team still managed to reach Forest’s first European semi-final since 1984.
Pereia’s side faced Aston Villa for a place in the Europa League final and took a 1-0 lead into Thursday evening’s second leg at Villa Park.
Ahead of the game, Pereira made eight changes to his team for Sunday’s Premier League clash at Chelsea in which the Reds recorded a fine 3-1 success but fresh injury blows in the game left Forest down to the bare bones for Thursday’s Europa League semi-final second leg.
Forest had eight players missing for the game for which Morgan Gibbs-White, Dan Ndoye, Ibrahim Sangaré and Murillo were only named on the bench to add some seniority to the squad.
Only Murillo of the quartet made it on to the pitch for a game in which Villa raced to a 4-0 success to book their place in the Istanbul final against SC Freiburg.
Giving a very honest post match assessment, Pereira said the defeat was a sad day for his club but admitted that his men were not machines and ultimately could not deal with the schedule required.
Pereira, though, highlighted the importance of his men now “winning the battle” to survive the drop as the Reds prepare to return to action just three days later with Sunday afternoon’s Premier League clash at home to Newcastle United.
Speaking to Nottingham Forest’s official website, Pereira said: “Now it is important to win the battle until the end of the season and then we can think about building something to be back in European competition.
“The players are not machines and they cannot deal with this kind of schedule”
“We have to play again after three days. We played three days ago and we’re playing again three days after this game, and there are teams not in Europe that are playing on Monday.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries because the players are not machines and they cannot deal with this kind of schedule.
“To compete for the final we only had three substitutes fit enough to play, and we took the risk with Murillo. He is not ready yet and it was very tough.
“We had one less day to recover than them, which can make a lot of difference.
“It was a sad day. But we need to come back stronger and recover to compete against Newcastle United.
“I hope our supporters understand that the players fought with everything they had. But it was not possible.”