Nottingham Forest were beaten by Manchester City in the Wembley sunshine as a brilliant FA Cup run came crashing to a halt against the serial winners.
The Reds lost 2-0 courtesy of goals from Rico Lewis and Josko Gvardiol, with Forest made to rue a host of missed opportunities in the second half to get back into the contest.
Nuno Espirito Santo praised young Zach Abbott for his showing at Wembley, with the defender being thrust into action as an auxiliary right-back in the absence of Neco Williams.
The Reds had a number of top performers yesterday, however, there was one decision when it came to Espirito Santo picking his team that had Steve Hodge feeling a little bit puzzled.
Steve Hodge bemused over Forest star Anthony Elanga
The decision to leave Elanga out of the starting eleven felt like a strange one and just seconds after his introduction, the Swedish star should have put Forest on level terms but fluffed his lines.
His pace proved a constant torment to City and the defenders facing Forest yesterday will have been delighted when his name wasn’t on the team-sheet that was revealed before kick-off.
Hodge wasn’t overly happy with the fact that Elanga was left out of the team and said on Radio Nottingham: “If he was fit and didn’t start, I would want to know why. Everything that was good from us, he made it happen.”
Nuno must start Anthony Elanga vs Brentford
It was a shame not to see Elanga on the pitch for the opening 45 minutes and Forest struggled to create much at all during that opening period of the match as City set their stall out.
Forest looked far better in the second half, with Elanga’s mere presence doing enough at times to force City onto the back foot, allowing players to carve out openings for themselves.
As a result, Espirito Santo simply has to restore Elanga to his starting eleven for the game against Brentford, with Forest now needing to fully focus on playing well in the final five games and securing Champions League football.
The exciting forward is going to be huge in the final games of the campaign and from this point on, Espirito Santo has to stop leaving the Sweden international on the bench.
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