Nottingham Forest head coach Steve Cooper has lauded Ryan Yates after his performance in Saturday’s win over Liverpool.
The Reds worked tirelessly throughout the contest and there were glimpses that the team was starting to gel together.
Yates was handed another start at the heart of midfield, with Cheikhou Kouyate and Remo Freuler also playing superbly well.
The Reds did well to keep Liverpool at bay less than a week after they’d defeated Manchester City at Anfield.
Some had predicted that Jurgen Klopp’s team had turned a corner after three successive victories.
They arrived at the City Ground without an away league win all season and left Nottingham with that statistic intact.
Yates was tremendous and boss Cooper couldn’t help but praise him after the epic victory for the Reds.
He told Nottinghamshire Live: “We had some good chances. We scored the goal. Yatesy’s chance was amazing. How good was he? It was an incredible performance from him – here’s me contradicting what I just said about not talking about individuals.
“But, cor, if you ever want to see a local boy, an academy product, playing in a big game…for all the academy boys, just go and watch that back.”
Yates lauded by Cooper after Forest win
The 24-year-old is proving his doubters wrong and this performance showcased that he can do a job in the Premier League.
Forest deserved to beat Liverpool at the weekend.
The talk afterwards was about how bad the visitors were but that does seem a little disrespectful to Forest.
Cooper had done his homework and in packing the midfield he forced Liverpool out wide.
That seemed to stifle the threat of Mohamed Salah who was largely anonymous and Roberto Firmino who fed off scraps.
Yates was awesome!
It was arguably his finest display in a Forest shirt and the challenge for the Reds star is to find this performance level on a consistent basis.
He certainly has the backing of Cooper.
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