Nottingham Forest face Exeter City in the FA Cup on Tuesday night looking to progress to round five and go just three games away from a place at Wembley.
Nuno Espirito Santo is keen to continue winning games of football. His team thrashed Brighton 7-0 last time out but a tough trip to Exeter will require the same level of concentration and focus.
Liverpool were beaten by Plymouth yesterday and with Arsenal being knocked out in round three, Forest are now the highest-ranked team remaining in the FA Cup this season.
Forest will play for the first time since the transfer window closed this week. James Ward-Prowse returned to West Ham at the end of his loan, whilst Joel Ndala checked in from PSV at the eleventh hour with the window set to close.
Evangelos Marinakis wanted to sign a new forward during the transfer window. However, the club were left frustrated in their attempts and have instead focused on keeping the current group together.
Nuno Espirito Santo delivers injury updates on Callum Hudson-Odoi and Murillo
Hudson-Odoi has missed the last two games for Forest. He has sat out the games against Bournemouth and Brighton after limping out of the action during a 3-2 win over Southampton.
He’s a big part of how Forest play and it was good to see Hudson-Odoi out in Dubai seemingly training properly alongside his teammates during the warm weather training.
Murillo was forced out of the action against Brighton too. Some questions were raised over his fitness afterwards and the Forest head coach has now been quizzed on the two players.
He said in his press conference: “Everybody has to be assessed because it’s the details we look at. With Callum we have to see, he’s coming back, let’s see how he is. Murillo is much better now, he’s joined the group normally.”
Espirito Santo should go strong against Exeter
With Forest not having a game for almost 10 days there could be some ring rust to shake off at St James’ Park tomorrow night. As a result, the Forest head coach has a conundrum.
With Fulham to come on Saturday, the Reds really need to get some consistency back to their play and in our view that should lead to Forest playing a strong team against the League One opposition.
The Reds have a genuine chance of winning the competition this season. With Liverpool and Arsenal out, the Reds will be among a clutch of teams now eyeing the silverware.
Exeter will be bang up for the contest tomorrow night. With that in mind, Espirito Santo will want his blushes spared and that might lead to him calling upon his strongest team to get the job done.
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