Vitor Pereira laments schedule after Villa loss and urges Forest to finish survival fight | OneFootball

Nottingham Forest’s Europa League run ended with a 4-0 defeat at Aston Villa on Thursday at Villa Park, shifting focus back to a tight relegation battle with three league games left. Villa advanced to the Istanbul final to face SC Freiburg.

Pereira’s side held a 1-0 advantage from the first leg and had reached a first European semi-final since 1984. After eight changes for Sunday’s 3-1 Premier League win at Chelsea, injuries left Forest with eight absentees on Thursday. Morgan Gibbs-White, Dan Ndoye, Ibrahim Sangaré and Murillo were named on the bench for seniority, and only Murillo came on.

“The players are not machines and they cannot deal with this kind of schedule. It was a sad day. But we need to come back stronger and recover to compete against Newcastle United.”

He was speaking to Nottingham Forest’s official website.

“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.”

“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 had one less day to recover than them, which can make a lot of difference.”

“I hope our supporters understand that the players fought with everything they had. But it was not possible.”

Source: yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk