Vitor Pereira made the surprise call to put Taiwo Awoniyi in his Nottingham Forest squad ahead of Lorenzo Lucca for the game against Fulham.
Awoniyi has been in and out of matchday squads throughout the season, but it does appear as though he’s now back in the thoughts of Pereira.
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The game changed in Forest’s favour when the Nigerian was introduced in the second half, and he perhaps should have done better with a couple of chances he had.
It was the decision to put him in the squad ahead of Lucca that caused the most intrigue, and now, Pereira has cleared up his decision.
Vitor Pereira hails Taiwo Awoniyi’s work rate
It would appear that this latest decision made by Pereira was simply down to how the two players are performing away from the pitch in training.
Awoniyi is putting in the hard yards behind the scenes, it would seem, and that played a big part in twisting Pereira’s arm when he named his matchday squad.
He told Nottinghamshire Live: “I decided to go with Taiwo. My decisions about how you need to deserve what you get in life.
“It’s not about the quality, because he (Lucca) has quality. But, in this moment, in my opinion, Taiwo deserved to play, and it was my decision.
“This is about merit and about work, about the spirit. In 20 minutes, Awoniyi created a lot and had two chances to score. The last one was in the last second. He is a fighter, and I like this type of player, I like this mentality and spirit.”
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With Igor Jesus on the pitch, Forest often play as though they don’t actually have a striker, given that he’s always looking to drop deeper to get on the ball.
In the current predicament, that simply won’t do, and with Awoniyi on the pitch, the Reds constantly have a player who is a nuisance to the opposition defence.
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Awoniyi has done his time as a substitute now and with Jesus scoring just two Premier League goals all season, the time has surely come to give the big man a go in the attack from the start.
Lucca won’t be happy that he’s been ousted by Awoniyi, but he needs to look at the performance from his teammate yesterday and see what he needs to do when he does get chances if he’s going to get any more minutes on the pitch this season.
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