A history lesson from head coach Steve Cooper helped inspire Nottingham Forest to a thumping Carabao Cup victory over Blackburn Rovers.
The Reds have won the competition four times before and been runners-up twice. But it is a long time since they have reached the latter stages of the tournament.
Their 4-1 triumph at Ewood Park sent them through to the quarter-finals for the first time since 1994. They could have scored more, but a Brennan Johnson brace and strikes from Jesse Lingard and Taiwo Awoniyi eased them into the next round as they made their return to action following the World Cup break.
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“The objective in a cup game is to get through to the next round. I spoke to the players before the game and showed them a bit about Forest’s history in this tournament and how good it’s been for the club in the past,” said Cooper.
“While we’re in it, we have to give everything we can to get through to the next round. We really committed to the game.
“We should have been out of sight after 15 or 20 minutes. Once we got one, I really wanted the team to step on and take the game away from Blackburn. I just felt we did a little bit of the opposite.
“I never felt we weren’t controlling the game. But after our goal, I just didn’t like some of our decision-making. I thought we could have been more ruthless and more aggressive with our play, both with and without the ball.
“Because we weren’t quite that, we just allowed Blackburn to have some moments - which included them getting the corner, which we didn’t clear well, then we gave away a poor free-kick and they score. It was a good free-kick from their point of view, with the cross and the header, but a poor one from our point of view in terms of the free header. But we should never have been in that situation in the first place.
“We addressed that at half-time. But don’t get me wrong, there were loads of good things in the game, and it was, ‘just keep going, lads’.
“Brennan was a right threat, and it was only a matter of time before he created and scored again. The attacking players looked a real threat; we just needed to stay connected in the game.
“Second half, we did a lot better and I felt it was only a matter of time before we would go on and win the game. We looked clinical then, with the goals from T and Brennan.
“It was job well done and loads of positives. But also some things I didn’t quite like in our performance as well.”
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