Nottingham Forest boss Vitor Pereira watched on as his team exited the Europa League to Aston Villa on Thursday night.
Forest had won 1-0 in the first leg at the City Ground.
However, Aston Villa dominated last night at Villa Park.
Watkins scored on 36 minutes but Forest’s goal leading a charmed life as Villa could and should have had the tie won far earlier than they did.
The inevitable happened though on 58 minutes when Buendia scored a penalty to put Villa 2-0 up on the night and 2-1 on aggregate.
With Forest not in the game and clearly getting knocked out, the TV commentators continually wondering why the likes of Morgan Gibbs-White were not brought on.
Vitor Pereira did try and switched to a more attacking formation late on but with the players he had on the pitch it looked doomed. Sure enough Villa cutting them open with ease and the only surprise was it took until 77 and 80 minutes for McGinn to score twice and a 4-0 hammering that confirmed Aston Villa reached the final.
Ian Dennis of BBC Sport was covering the Villa v Forest match and he reported: “Despite being on the bench tonight, Vitor Pereira has said Sangare “OUT”, Ndoye “OUT”, Murillo “OUT and Gibbs White “OUT” plus Aina “OUT” for Sunday against Newcastle United.”
The Nottingham Forest boss admitting that the likes of Gibbs-White, Sangare and Ndoye had been included on the bench even though he knew their injury situations meant it was impossible to put them on the pitch. Murillo thrown on for just the final two minutes of the 90.
Vitor Pereira speaking to TNT Sports: “To compete in a semi-final and against a team like Aston Villa, we need everyone in the conditions to compete. If you look before the game, on the bench we had three players, because the other ones were injured. Our bench today, the only solutions we had from the first team was [Dilane] Bakwa, [Lorenzo] Lucca, Murillo, we tried but he was injured and not in condition, and Yates. This is very short to come here without solutions. Playing against Chelsea and then travelling again to come here after three days, it was not possible. I’m very proud of our supporters, they tried on this long road to help us, but it was not possible. It is a pity but I am proud of my players because they tried everything.”
The Nottingham Forest boss cut a frustrated figure on the touchline.
Asked afterwards why Forest could not match Villa’s intensity: “[Ola] Aina out. Morgan [Gibbs-White] out. [Ibrahim] Sangare, out. Murillo, out. Callum [Hudson-Odoi], out. [Dan] Ndoye, out. To bring the full squad, we put three injured players on the bench, and we brought three more players from the academy. To compete in a game in these conditions, after a game against Chelsea, and play in a semi-final is not possible. This is why I said we were not able to compete.”
Vitor Pereira now needing to lift his tired and dejected team for Sunday, just as well they won at Chelsea on Monday to give themselves a six points gap to third bottom West Ham with three games left to play.
Interesting to see what kind of team Nottingham Forest put out on the pitch against Newcastle United, so many injuries and then having to analyse the physical condition of those who did play against Villa and now have a big Premier League match so quickly afterwards.