Steve Cooper
Head coach Steve Cooper says Nottingham Forest shouldn’t forget how far they have come in the past year, after their Carabao Cup run came to an end at the semi-final stage. The Reds were always facing an uphill task, going into the second leg 3-0 down to Manchester United from last week’s reverse fixture at the City Ground. Cooper had been keen for his side to at least put in a good performance, and they had given a decent account of themselves before United made the breakthrough with 15 minutes to go. Anthony Martial capitalised on an error from Willy Boly, and Fred bagged the hosts’ second just a few minutes later to ensure victory on the night and a 5-0 result on aggregate. Cooper, though, was keen to focus on the positives.
Steve Cooper said: “Overall, we are disappointed we haven’t got through, because when you get this far you want to go one step further. But in terms of getting through to the final, the damage was really done last week. I couldn’t say that before, because it was a bit of a defeatist message and we don’t want to be that; that’s not what we are. The guys stuck to the plan tonight. If we score the two clearcut chances in the first half, or even one of them, then it is a different game. But that is us having to take those opportunities. We have to do better, there’s no doubt about that. But I do think we can take some belief and courage from how we stuck to the plan and nearly got the breakthrough in the first half. The longer the tie was going on and the scoreline was what it was, things had to change a little bit, and that probably did affect the rhythm of our performance. And then they got the goal. The tie was really done then after the first goal, and then they get the second one. We will look at the performance and what we thought was good. We will certainly look at the things we need to improve on. United over the two legs have been far better than us and deserve to go through, but a couple of ricochets didn’t go our way tonight. You have to make your own luck at the same time. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact we have got to a semi-final. How many clubs would have loved to have been on the stage we have been on in the last couple of games? It’s the first time in more than 30 years the club has been at this stage. Although it hasn’t gone our way, I’m so pleased that the younger generation of our supporters have been able to walk up to a stadium and see their team in a semi-final for the first time. This time last year, we were probably mid-table in the Championship and trying to break into the play-off places. For us to be trying to compete in the Premier League now and get to the semi-final of a major trophy tells us that the club is on an upward projection. We shouldn’t lose sight of that. We’ve got to work even harder every day to try to continue that.”
