Midfielder Lewis O'Brien has opened up about the difficulty of being omitted from Nottingham Forest's Premier League squad.
O'Brien joined Forest from Huddersfield last summer in a £10million move, but was all set to join Blackburn Rovers on loan at the end of the January transfer window.
The move fell through when the relevant paperwork was processed late, and O'Brien was subsequently left out of Forest's 25-man Premier League squad for the second half of the season. Despite the frustration, he does not regret moving to the City Ground.
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"I have no malicious thoughts about anything that has gone on and I don't hold a grudge," O'Brien told BBC Sport.
"Who in their right mind would turn down an opportunity to play in the Premier League? No-one. It is every boy's dream from the minute they say they want to play football. There are no regrets from the minute I signed until now and there never will be.
"Sometimes things don't go the way you want. You have to take a pit stop somewhere else and get yourself back on track."
After his transfer to Blackburn fell through, it was a difficult time for O'Brien until he secured a temporary move to Wayne Rooney's DC United in the USA.
"I'm not going to say it was all fine," he added. "Up to that point, my career had gone up and up and up. I had played every single game, so even being on the bench was tough to take.
"Every day I sat waiting for an answer after training. My family, my mum, my dad, my fiancee dealt with the brunt of it when I got home. I wasn't in the best of moods."
"I backed myself. I knew there were reasons why I had been signed and there are also reasons why other players were getting signed. I knew I was a different type of player to the ones who were coming in and those we already had. You just have to try to impress when you get on the pitch every day. Unfortunately, it didn't work out."
The 24-year-old has hinted that his career at Forest might not be over as he looks towards the future and refers to the Reds as 'we' when discussing their current plight.
"I am really grateful to Wayne Rooney and DC United but, personally, I want to prove I can be in the Forest team and I can play in the Premier League every week. I want to be the player they signed.
"I still watch all the games and speak to some of the lads. It is tough. Any newly-promoted club will find it tough. It is almost a different game, not even football.
"Now it is head down and graft it out. It might be we finish one place above relegation. But you have to do what you have to do to stay up."
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