Vitor Pereira insists tie not over despite Forest going down to Midtjylland | OneFootball

Nottingham Forest boss Vitor Pereira says Midtjylland celebrated like they had won the tie after the Reds were beaten 1-0 in the first leg of their last-16 Europa League tie at the City Ground.

Forest were on the front foot for much of the encounter but were unable to produce the cutting edge as Elias Rafn Olafsson notably denied Omari Hutchinson and Elliot Anderson twice.

Forest lacked their clinical edge but Midtjylland cashed in on one of their few chances after Ousmane Diao supplied a cross for Cho Gue-sung to nod past Matz Sels for a second victory in Nottingham, following a 3-2 win in the league phase of the competition in October.

After the game, Midtjylland went over to celebrate with their fans for several minutes before celebrations continued in the dressing room with loud music.

Midtjylland are unbeaten in all competitions at home but Pereira warned the tie is not over and thinks the Danish team were celebrating too early.

He said: “In the end, they created two chances and scored one goal. We are in half-time, because they (Midtjylland) are celebrating a lot. It’s like they finished the game today but it’s not finished.

“Now it’s time to recover physically and mentally because it will be another challenge for us, and after we will see what we do there in the second game.

“I cannot say to my players you didn’t do everything to win the game because they did it. They tried everything to score. We tried 22 shots on goal.

“The draw was a bad result looking for what we produced. A defeat is cruel… cruel day, difficult day, but it’s important to keep the spirit, the mentality and to recover.

“Frustrated of course. I’m proud of them (players) because they tried everything with the spirit we want to see.”

As Forest were having their best spell of the game, a torrential downpour of rain began to bounce down after the break which made the playing surface heavy in areas with water visibly coming up from the pitch.

Pereira admits the weather did affect his team while they were in a good spell.

He added: “With this rain its not easy to create chances.

“In our best moment of the game, when we are creating it started to rain a lot and the pitch was heavy and difficult to play after the rain.

“Life and football is not about complaining, its about tomorrow to keep the spirit of the players and compete again in.”

Midjylland boss Mike Tullberg saw his side win for a second time at the City Ground but warned the tie is not over.

He said: “I like coming here not because we won two times but for us in general coming from Denmark we are not used to playing in big stadiums.

“Without saying this in disrespect, they change managers quite a lot here so for us it was the same players. I think Forest had better players today than the last time we played them.