Steve Cooper has challenged his Nottingham Forest hopefuls to take the fight to Manchester United in their quest to reach the Carabao Cup final.
With a dream trip to Wembley at stake, Forest and United go face-to-face over two legs, starting at the City Ground on Wednesday night (8pm). Newcastle hold a 1-0 advantage over Southampton in the other last-four tie with Premier League success guaranteed in the competition this season.
Forest overcame Grimsby, Tottenham, Blackburn and Wolves to book their place in the semi-final for the first time since 1992, and they are four-time winners. But what do the Midlands outfit need to do to avenge their recent top-flight defeat to United and progress?
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During a pre-match interview, Cooper told Forest TV: "It's a big focus of ours to make it an occasion to relish. We're proud to get into the later stages of an important competition and the club has good history in it, we've got to do what it takes to do well and do our best to deliver.
"It's going to be a tough couple of games [against United], we're only focused on the first leg at the moment and have to commit to it and back ourselves, otherwise it'll be even more difficult. We need to recognise that these games might not come around too often and we've had to work hard to get here.
"We look forward to it, embrace it and attack it, but in our way. The club has a good history in the competition, but we want to create more memories for the supporters because it's our first League Cup semi-final for a long time, we've got to focus and be ready to give it everything we've got."
United goalkeeper Dean Henderson, currently on loan with Forest, is ineligible for the semi-final tie against his parent club. But in any case, he would have missed the two games due to injury.
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