Steve Cooper suggests 19-year-old Forest gem has impressed him in training recently

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Nottingham Forest head coach Steve Cooper has suggested that he’s happy with Andrey Santos. The player came on for his first appearance in the Premier League for the Reds during yesterday’s defeat.

The player is on loan from Chelsea and he’s been forced to wait patiently for a chance. Yesterday, Santos came on in place of Forest midfielder Orel Mangala and got a short time on the pitch to stake his claim.

The Brazilian is extremely highly rated by his parent club. It’s not been unnoticed that Forest haven’t played Santos much either; with Fabrizio Romano suggesting previously that Chelsea might look at recalling him if he doesn’t play more.

Cooper praises Santos after Forest defeat

The Forest head coach is clearly biding his time with Santos. However, he will need to be careful if he’s keen to keep him for the entire season, with Chelsea monitoring things very closely.

After Forest lost 3-0 to Liverpool, he was given the chance to discuss Santos. He suggested that he’s been impressing him on the training pitch and perhaps more game time is to be forthcoming.

The Forest head coach told Nottinghamshire Live about the Santos situation: “We want to try to integrate new players as much as we can while trying to be as competitive as we can. We felt there was an opportunity to get on the ball at that time.

“Orel (Mangala) had been yellow carded and we could see how things were going with that, so I wanted to take that away from the referee and get him off.

“It was an opportunity to get Andrey some minutes. He’s been waiting patiently and has been training well enough, so let’s see where we go from there with him.”

Santos can do a job this season

Just lately, Mangala, Ibrahim Sangare and Nicolas Dominguez have done okay. They’ve struck up a bit of a relationship in the Forest midfield and that’s made it difficult for players like Santos to get a look in.

Now, however, could be the time for some small tweaks. Sangare looked a little out of sorts, whilst Dominguez also had a bit of an off-day yesterday.

Ryan Yates is waiting patiently in the wings and enjoyed a decent cameo yesterday. Santos didn’t get much game time for Forest yesterday but it’s clear he’s in Cooper’s thoughts and it will be interesting to see how things progress with the player.