Boss Steve Cooper admitted some senior Nottingham Forest players “fell a bit short” in Tuesday night’s 2-2 draw at Notts County.
Amid a three-game week before the start of the Premier League campaign, the Reds fielded a match squad largely made up of fringe and younger players at Meadow Lane. Giulian Biancone was the only one of the summer signings involved, with Cooper having an eye on Saturday’s final friendly, against Valencia.
The match did see striker Sam Surridge and midfielder Ryan Yates make their returns from injury. But the Forest head coach gave an honest assessment of some aspects of the visitors’ performance.
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“I’m only really interested in what we got out of it,” he said. “The positives were Yatesy and Sam being back on the grass and getting some match minutes under their belts, because time is a little bit of the essence, in terms of game time. That was a real plus.
“And, the kids; it was great for the kids to get the experience of a crowd, of a nice stadium and playing against a men’s team. The likes of Zach Abbott and Aaron Donnelly, I’m really pleased to have given them that opportunity.
“A couple of the more senior boys didn’t do so well, truth be told. There’s no point shying away from that - they’ve fallen a bit short with individual performance. But some of them didn’t really play for us in the Championship, so it’s going to be difficult for them to play for us this year.
“It was always part of the plan to be a bit of a bounce game. We knew we wanted to play a certain type of game against Union Berlin (a 1-0 defeat last Saturday), and we know we want to play a certain team against Valencia at the weekend. This game in between was for the guys who needed some minutes.
“We’re on course. It was good for Yatesy and Sam, good for the kids, and a little bit of confirmation on some other stuff.
“We were very clear before the game about, as an individual, make sure you play well. Some did and some didn’t.”
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