Nuno must ditch Ryan Yates, one Nottingham Forest player did more in 24 minutes on Saturday

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Nottingham Forest face Everton this weekend and Nuno Espirito Santo now has to make a tough call over a popular player.

The Reds drew 2-2 with Wolves on Saturday with Morgan Gibbs-White and Danilo getting themselves among the goals.

Once again, however, Forest were the architects of their own downfall and the performance was riddled with some basic errors.

The Reds have been desperately striving for a consistent run and perhaps one area on the pitch that hasn’t helped things is in midfield.

Ryan Yates, Nicolas Dominguez, Danilo and Ibrahim Sangare are all fighting for the shirts in the engine room.

On Saturday, we saw the clearest indication that one player simply shouldn’t make the starting eleven at Everton and his replacement is waiting in the wings.

• READ MORE: Nottingham Forest first-team squad 2023/24

Nuno Espirito Santo has to replace Ryan Yates with Forest star

Yates is a player who often divides opinion among the fan base and even his most ardent supporters couldn’t really give him much credit on Saturday.

He almost cost Forest a goal early on when his loose pass allowed Pablo Sarabia to get a shot away but Murillo cleared off the line.

Then, for the first Wolves goal, scored by Matheus Cunha, he inexplicably failed to stop the striker from cutting inside and got his positioning all wrong.

Yates was eventually substituted and replaced by Nicolas Dominguez – a man who did more in 24 minutes than the Forest captain managed.

Sofa Score shows that the Argentine completed 26 passes to Yates’ 25 and made six passes into the final third – with the academy graduate managing just one.

Espirito Santo is robbing Forest fans of Dominguez class

Okay, the argument from the Yates fans will be that Dominguez has made mistakes – most notably at West Ham in November when his misplaced pass allowed Lucas Paqueta to score.

However, this is a player who at 25 is still learning his trade in the Premier League but had starred in Serie A and was on the cusp of going to a World Cup with Argentina.

Instead, Forest are persisting with Yates. As Garry Birtles alluded to earlier this week, the captain simply slows everything down and that’s not what Forest need at the moment.

The Reds need to fight fire with fire to a certain degree and with Everton short on confidence, Forest need a plan of attack.

Dominguez possesses every single trait that Yates does but he represents a massive upgrade in terms of being able to move the ball quickly.

Furthermore, Everton are lethal at set pieces and this season, according to FBRef, Yates has given away more than double the amount of fouls that Dominguez has.

Saturday wasn’t the first time that Yates had disappointed in recent weeks and Espirito Santo must now start Forest star Dominguez against Everton.