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 XI 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.
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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 build-up to the match.
“We had players missing through injury. We’re not sure if they’ll be back. We’ll need to assess that,” said Cooper.
“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.
