{"id":826652,"date":"2025-02-13T10:12:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-13T16:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/13\/nottingham-forest-head-coach-reveals-why-ola-aina-didnt-feature-in-their-clash-against-exeter\/"},"modified":"2025-02-13T10:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T16:12:14","slug":"nottingham-forest-head-coach-reveals-why-ola-aina-didnt-feature-in-their-clash-against-exeter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/13\/nottingham-forest-head-coach-reveals-why-ola-aina-didnt-feature-in-their-clash-against-exeter\/","title":{"rendered":"Nottingham Forest head coach reveals why Ola Aina didn\u2019t feature in their clash against Exeter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Soccer <\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Nottingham Forest\u2019s head coach, Nuno Espirito Santo, has revealed the reason Super Eagles defender, Ola Aina, didn\u2019t feature in his side\u2019s FA Cup victory against Exeter last night, <a href=\"https:\/\/soccernet.ng\/\">Soccernet.ng<\/a> reports.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The 28-year-old defender has played in every English Premier League game for the Reds this season, scoring two goals and providing one assist, but wasn\u2019t even on the bench for their FA Cup game yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>His national compatriot, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/soccernet.ng\/2025\/02\/espirito-santo-awoniyi-nottingham-forest-exeter.html\">Taiwo Awoniyi<\/a><\/strong>, found the back of the net in the 37th minute but had to be stretchered off later in the game after he suffered a concussion alongside a broken nose.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_146865\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-146865\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/soccernet.ng\/app\/uploads\/2025\/01\/imago1052946691-1024x683.jpg\" alt width=\"1024\" height=\"683\"  ><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-146865\">Premier League Anthony Elanga, Ola Aina and Callum Hudson-Odoi of Nottingham Forest celebrate after the Premier League match against Leicester City FC and at The King Power Stadium on October 25, 2024 in Leicester, England. [Photo Credit\/ Imago].<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3><strong>Get Our Sports News First \u2013\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029VagMHLcA89MZvw0Btc21\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Join Our WhatsApp Channel Now!<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Exeter, despite being a League One side, held on to a draw and were knocked out on penalties by Forest, who benched most of their first-team players, including <a href=\"https:\/\/soccernet.ng\/2025\/01\/nottingham-forest-espirito-santo-breaks-guardiolas-heart-with-update-on-ainas-contract.html\">Ola Aina<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Their manager, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/soccernet.ng\/2024\/11\/report-ola-aina-to-get-huge-wage-rise-with-new-nottingham-forest-contract.html\">Nuno<\/a><\/strong>, was quizzed after the game if he was sure he made the right decision to put the team\u2019s best players on the bench. His response revealed he gave minutes to those deserving to play in the tournament.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_145555\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-145555\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/soccernet.ng\/app\/uploads\/2024\/12\/imago1056482375-1-1024x682.jpg\" alt width=\"1024\" height=\"682\"  ><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-145555\">26th December 2024 The City Ground, Nottingham, England Premier League Football, Nottingham Forest versus Tottenham Hotspur Ola Aina of Nottingham Forest applauds the home fans after the final whistle.\u00a0 [Photo Credit\/ Imago].<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not about resting [players], it\u2019s about how we are approaching the competition. We did the same at Luton, and we\u2019re going to probably do the same [again] because, unfortunately, we cannot give minutes to all the players.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cSo this is a reward for all the players that worked so hard, the young boys. It\u2019s good for us. It\u2019s not resting players. It\u2019s taking care of all the squad. The FA Cup is very hard and just look at the draws that came. A lot of surprises will happen. We just have to do our job. It\u2019s going to be at the City Ground [the match with Ipswich], and we\u2019re going to be ready,\u201d the former Tottenham Hotspur gaffer said in quotes revealed by <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/sport\/33333977\/nottingham-forest-taiwo-awoniyi-injury-concussion-broken-nose\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Sun<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div data-ad-label=\"inArticleMPU\">\n<figure id=\"attachment_144887\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-144887\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/soccernet.ng\/app\/uploads\/2024\/12\/0_Anthony-Elanga-right-celebrates-scoring-Nottingham-Forests-second-against-Brentford-with-fellow-goalscorer-Ola-Aina.jpg\" alt width=\"810\" height=\"539\"  ><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-144887\">Anthony Elanga (right) celebrates scoring Forest\u2019s second against Brentford with fellow goalscorer Ola Aina (Image: PA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/soccernet.ng\/2024\/12\/it-is-time-to-act-taiye-taiwo-sends-strong-message-concerning-ola-aina-to-nottingham-forest.html\">Ola Aina\u2019s<\/a> contract at the City Ground runs out at the end of this season, and the club are confident they\u2019ll keep the former Chelsea man beyond this summer.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><img alt=\"Soccer Adefolahan Guerreiro\" src=\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/740e257566cac1cbb2887e0f85afd655?s=80&#038;d=mm&#038;r=g\"  height=\"80\" width=\"80\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\">\t\t<\/p>\n<div>\n<h3>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/soccernet.ng\/author\/guerreiro\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\tAdefolahan Guerreiro\t\t\t\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/h3>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tAdefolahan is a multilingual journalist and writer at Soccernet Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p>With a track record of involvement in College sports, Adefolahan is focused on crafting engaging football content and utilising his language skills and extensive sports knowledge to enhance content accessibility for a global audience.<\/p>\n<p>He has interviewed Nigerian stars like Finidi George, Junior Lokosa, and Abraham Onahi Ogbu.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/soccernet.ng\/2025\/02\/nottingham-forest-ola-aina-exeter-fa-cup.html\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a>Adefolahan Guerreiro<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Soccer Nottingham Forest\u2019s head coach, Nuno Espirito Santo, has revealed the reason Super Eagles defender, Ola Aina, didn\u2019t feature in his side\u2019s FA Cup victory against Exeter last night, Soccernet.ng reports. The 28-year-old defender has played in every English Premier League game for the Reds this season, scoring two goals and providing one assist, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":826653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26774,94925,2005],"tags":[14675,94924],"class_list":{"0":"post-826652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-forest","8":"category-nottingham","9":"category-soccer","10":"tag-forest","11":"tag-nottingham"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}