Nottingham Forest lost to Liverpool at the weekend but in Ryan Yates, the team had a player who looked back to his best.
It’s not been an easy few weeks for Yates who has found himself out of the team under Nuno Espirito Santo.
Against Manchester United, he returned to the team and he kept his shirt for the game against Liverpool at the weekend.
He didn’t disappoint and now Forest head coach Espirito Santo has some food for thought.
Ryan Yates edges back to his best for Nottingham Forest
The Reds were hard done by at the weekend. As Jermaine Jenas said, Forest can bemoan yet another stinking refereeing decision.
All Forest can do is move on, however, and they now have four games that they will fancy getting some points from.
In taking the positives from Saturday, Espirito Santo will have been excited by the performance of Yates.
Yates did himself no harm at all when it came to cementing a place back in the Forest team and Who Scored showcased that he had a good game.
He won three aerial challenges during his 90 minutes on the pitch, had 41 touches and also claimed a couple of interceptions and blocked shots.
Yates did commit four fouls – the most of any Forest player – and perhaps that’s one area that he can still improve on.
Yates will now hope to keep his place
The 26-year-old has only actually started 12 games in the Premier League this season and he will be craving more game time.
Under Espirito Santo, he’s started six times in the Premier League and he won’t see his place as guaranteed just yet.
Yates continues to divide opinion among the Forest fan base – with the opinion on his ability extremely inconsistent.
One thing that nobody can ever knock Yates for is his ability to simply knuckle down and try to prove his harshest critics wrong.
After being out of the team for certain games under the new head coach, it would have been easy for Yates to sulk – but that’s not really his style.
This is only a single step but on Saturday against Liverpool, Yates did showcase what he’s capable of adding to the current Forest squad.
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