Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper has confirmed talks with Chelsea over the situation of loanee midfielder Andrey Santos.
Having been discussed as a potential first-team option at Stamford Bridge after completing his move from Vaso da Gama in the summer, the Brazilian moved on loan to the City Ground but has found gametime hard to come by.
Santos has played only once for Forest, in the Carabao Cup defeat to Burnley, and has often failed to make the bench in the Premier League.
Forest, sat 12th in the table and level on points with Chelsea, have made a good start to the season and Cooper has insisted Santos’ absence is “circumstantial”.
“He’s been good,” said the manager. “He’s obviously a really good young player.
“I had a really good chat with Chelsea [about him] this week. I didn’t realise some stuff had been written about him.
“There’s a lot of new players here and we’re really trying to get the balance right in integrating all the players at the right time, while trying to perform as best we can in every single game to get the results we want. That’s a real process.
“With young players, sometimes it can take longer than others to settle in. I’m not saying he’s not, it’s just circumstantial at the moment in some of the games.”
Cooper has assured Santos and Chelsea that the 19-year-old’s time will come having planned to send him on in the recent draw with Brentford, however he felt unwell and Moussa Niakhate was sent off.
“Brentford could have been a really good game for him to come off the bench but we went down to 10 men and he wasn’t feeling too well on the sidelines,” he noted.
“That went against him, because he was definitely in our thinking for a change. It didn’t work out that way, because of how he was feeling and the red card – so there’s been a little bit of bad luck as well.
“But we’re really enjoying working with him and seeing him in training. We will continue with that process.”
