Rodrigo Ely proved one of the more bizarre Nottingham Forest signings in recent times. He left for Almeria without making a single appearance – or appearing in a single squad for the Reds.
The centre-back arrived on the back of a serious knee ligament injury. Given the severity of that problem, it meant that he was never going to get match fit at Forest, with the season already underway.
Ely was pencilled in on three occasions to make an appearance for Andy Reid’s under-23 outfit. On each occasion another niggle struck and the Brazilian defender was back to square one.
As a result, Cooper was left with little choice. He was forced to offload Ely, with the club coming to a mutual arrangement over the termination of his contract.
Now, he’s finally starting to settle at Almeria. At the weekend, his progress was highlighted, with the 28-year-old enforcer scoring his first goal for his new club in a 2-2 draw against Real Valladolid.
Ely has made six appearances for the Spanish second division side. He will hope to continue in the team until the end of the season and earn himself another deal.
Ely will aim to prove Forest wrong
When he departed, Ely was seemingly upset that he didn’t get a chance at Forest. That seemed odd considering he left at a time when the team was in particularly good form.
Ely has experience playing for Alaves and AC Milan during his career and when he signed, he looked like a decent addition on paper.
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As the old saying goes though, paper isn’t really useful when football is a game played on grass. Ultimately for Forest, they found it impossible to get Ely on the green bit to give him a chance to prove his worth.
Ely was a player that Forest simply couldn’t make space for in their squad. Now he will want to show that Cooper was wrong to offload him.