Nottingham Forest will assess Ethan Horvath and Richie Laryea before making a call on whether they are available to face Blackpool on Saturday.
The duo are among a group of Reds players who have been away on international duty during the two-week break from league action. But they will be the last to link up again with the group, leaving them facing a quick turnaround before the trip to Bloomfield Road.
Horvath has been first-choice between the posts for Forest in recent weeks, having taken his opportunity to impress while Brice Samba was suspended. He was on the bench on Wednesday night as USA qualified for this year’s World Cup despite a 2-0 defeat to Costa Rica.
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Full-back Laryea, meanwhile, has yet to make his debut in the Garibaldi since joining the club in January. But he has picked up game time for Canada this fortnight as they, too, clinched a place in Qatar - including putting in a man of the match display against Costa Rica. And Mohamed Drager, who is currently on loan at FC Luzern, was also celebrating qualification with Tunisia this week,
“We haven’t got the group back together yet, because Richie and Ethan travel as we speak, so we still haven’t got the full group together,” Cooper said. “But there’s no excuse, we’ve just got to get back together as quickly as we can and try to get up and running. That’s what we’re doing.
“A quick turnaround and time difference (between countries), all of those things need to get taken into account. We need to see them (Horvath and Laryea) first. They’ll have the normal assessments, like all the international boys do when they come back.
“We’ll make that judgement call as and when we can. They’ve got through the camps, as far as we know, injury free. Obviously Richie has played a lot more than Ethan.
“Congratulations to them both, by the way - what an achievement that is, qualifying for a World Cup. Likewise with Mo Drager as well. Congratulations to all of those boys.
“I’ve not worked at senior level internationally, but I’ve worked in international football and I know how much of an honour it is to qualify for tournaments. To think they’ve done it with the pinnacle of a World Cup is amazing, so congratulations from the club to them. Ethan and Richie travel back now and we’ll see how they are.”
