Head coach Steve Cooper has challenged Taiwo Awoniyi to maintain his goalscoring streak in Nottingham Forest's final two games.
The summer signing made it back-to-back braces as his double earned the Reds a 2-2 draw at Chelsea to keep their survival hopes alive. Following on from his success in Monday night’s 4-3 victory over Southampton, it only emphasises how much he was missed while sidelined for three months with injury.
The point at Stamford Bridge keeps Forest’s fate in their own hands with two games to go. They are well aware the job is not yet done and rued the goals they gave Frank Lampard’s side, but in Awoniyi they have a striker finding form at a good time.
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"You always want your striker to be scoring goals, and he's got more than a few this week," Cooper said. "He's missed most of the second part of the season, and he got injured at a time when he was doing what he did today.
"Although he's got his goals in the last two games, since he's come back he's played really well. But obviously you want your number nine to be scoring goals.
"We've been really happy with T. He showed a great attitude and commitment to getting back in the way he did.
"He hit the ground running as soon as we got him back on the pitch. Now he's turning good performances into good performances with goals. That's what you want and what you need from your strikers. Let's hope he can carry on in the next two games.
"We do everything together. Today is a good example of how we've worked really hard to score goals and given too many away of not the same sort of level, in terms of what the opponent has had to do.
"Don't take anything away from Chelsea's finishes. But how we've let them get into those positions is something we'll reflect on and should do better with.”
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