Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper has explained why Renan Lodi hasn’t played for the last three matches. The Brazilian has been replaced by Harry Toffolo in the team for games against Wolves, Leeds and Aston Villa.
Lodi’s omission has come as a bit of a surprise. His partner gave birth in the week building up to the Wolves game and his omission for that game did make sense.
He was on the bench against Leeds though and that shocked Forest fans. On Saturday, he wasn’t even in the squad, with fans left truly scratching their heads as to where he was.
Cooper has now addressed the situation regarding the 25-year-old. In a continuing trend of this season, Lodi is actually injured after taking a whack in training.
The head coach told Nottinghamshire Live: “Lodi has got injured. Renan had a kick in training which is going to keep him out for a little bit.”
Lodi has been a big player for Cooper this season. He signed in August from Atletico Madrid and the Reds have negotiated a price to sign him should they remain in the Premier League.
Now, he faces a spell on the sidelines. It comes at the worst possible time for the Reds who are already struggling badly with injury problems.
Cooper has explained why Lodi hasn’t played recently
This is a huge blow. Nothing against Toffolo who isn’t a bad player but it’s fair to say that he’s probably not quite cut out to be playing frequently in the Premier League.
Lodi has won titles in Spain and has also represented Brazil during his career. He was even called up for their most recent international fixture, such has been his form for Forest.
Forest fans will be hoping that this isn’t the last that they’ve seen of Lodi. The team will desperately miss him during their run-in if that is the case and hopefully he can return quickly from this setback.