Nottingham Forest loanee sent off just four minutes into his disaster debut at new club 

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The Nottingham Forest academy has for so long been the envy of many clubs who consider themselves much bigger than the Reds.

A hotbed of talent have departed the City Ground over the years and earned the football club millions when it comes to transfer fees.

Matty Cash, Oliver Burke, Arvin Appiah and more recently Brennan Johnson have all left Forest in recent times to head off to pastures new and rake in significant income for the club.

The academy have embarked on new opportunities since winning promotion to the Premier League. Forest have entered teams into the EFL Trophy in the last two seasons, whilst the Reds are also playing in the Premier League International Cup this season.

January saw several youngsters head out on loan. With the window now closed, some of those players are starting to make debuts and earn game time at their respective loan clubs.

• READ MORE: Nottingham Forest player made big January call

Joe Gardner sent off during Lincoln City debut

What an unfortunate incident this was. Gardner was only introduced to the action in Lincoln’s 1-1 draw with Cambridge in the 82nd minute. Four minutes later he was given his marching orders by the referee and shown a straight red card.

It’s an incident that will go under review for the Imps. Michael Skubala might choose to review it with the situation hardly a stonewall red card and perhaps the League One outfit will have a case.

Gardner has been in fine form for the Forest B-Team this season and a loan move makes perfect sense. He’s bagged six goals and in November he bagged a hat-trick during a 4-2 win over Everton.

Now, he will be hoping to get into the Lincoln team and get some minutes under his belt during his first loan spell at a professional club. If any appeal proves unsuccessful, he will, of course, be forced to miss the next three matches now.

Gardner has bright future at Forest

The youngster has shown this season that he’s not afraid to mix it with men. He gave a good account of himself in the EFL Trophy campaign this season and last, with Gardner unfazed by the physicality of players a lot older than him.

Gardner will need to dust himself down quickly after this episode. It proved a really unfortunate incident and hopefully, he can part it and move on – pending a possible appeal.

The youngster is rated very highly by coaches behind the scenes at the City Ground. Nuno Espirito Santo raved about Gardner last year after picking him to come off the bench in an FA Cup contest last season.

These experiences will shape the Forest youngsters in the months and years to come. The hope will be that Gardner can get back on the pitch quickly and start to show Lincoln fans exactly what he’s all about.