Vitor Pereira: players are not machines after 'sad' Villa rout, focus turns to Forest survival | OneFootball

Vitor Pereira said Nottingham Forest’s players are not machines after a 4-0 defeat at Aston Villa ended their Europa League run, and urged a reset for the relegation fight. Forest have three Premier League matches left and host Newcastle United on Sunday.

"Now it is important to win the battle until the end of the season and then we can think about building something to be back in European competition." "The players are not machines and they cannot deal with this kind of schedule." He was speaking to Nottingham Forest’s official website.

Pereira had made eight changes for Sunday’s 3-1 win at Chelsea, but injuries there left Forest threadbare for the return.

They then went into Thursday’s second leg at Villa Park 1-0 up, but with eight players missing. Morgan Gibbs-White, Dan Ndoye, Ibrahim Sangaré and Murillo were on the bench to add seniority, and only Murillo featured. It was Forest’s first European semi-final since 1984.

The hosts advanced to Istanbul to face SC Freiburg. "To compete for the final we only had three substitutes fit enough to play, and we took the risk with Murillo." "He is not ready yet and it was very tough."

"We have to play again after three days. We played three days ago and we are playing again three days after this game, and there are teams not in Europe that are playing on Monday."

"It was a sad day. I hope our supporters understand that the players fought with everything they had."

Source: yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk