Goalkeeper Dean Henderson has been backed to quickly get over any disappointment of potentially not being able to play for Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup semi-finals.
With the Reds drawn against Henderson’s parent club in the last-four of the competition, written permission would be needed from Manchester United for him to feature. And the suggestions are that is not something Erik ten Hag’s side will consider granting.
The 25-year-old was the hero of the hour on Wednesday night as Wolverhampton Wanderers were seen off in the quarter-finals. He made a trio of big saves during the game and then stopped two spot-kicks during the penalty shootout needed to separate the sides.
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He was also unable to play when Forest visited Old Trafford in the league last month. But head coach Steve Cooper says he is a team player who will do his best to support the rest of the squad, regardless of his personal circumstances.
"It's just his luck, eh,” Cooper said. “Dean being Dean, I would imagine he will obviously have the initial disappointment of not being able to play, but he's a really good teamship guy.
“He's a really good believer in the squad, so he won't let his personal disappointment get in the way of the team committing to the semi-final. If anything, he'll be helping the goalkeepers.
"You have to respect that there are always pros and cons to a loan. For example, Alex Mighten has come back to us (from Sheffield Wednesday) and as he's already played for us, he can't play for anyone else now. I have my personal views on that, I think if you bring someone in on loan you commit to it. My point is that when you use the loan market, of course it can work for you - and we benefited from it last year a lot, and benefited from it with Dean."
Mighten’s loan spell was cut short by the Owls, with Cooper having expressed his frustration over the League One outfit’s decision. Coupled with Henderson’s situation, it has highlighted the positives and negatives of the loan system and the various rules associated with it.
“It will definitely raise the topic of discussion for all of us,” Cooper said when asked about the parent club rule. “When you bring a loan in, you treat them as your own and you commit to them, otherwise don’t bring them in at all.
“It doesn’t mean a loan is going to work. I know we’ve brought loans here, and certainly when I was at Swansea, where they didn’t play as much as they would have thought. But you still give them the programme off the pitch, you still commit to their development, you still do all the individual meetings.
“We take that responsibility really, really carefully, and that’s what we’ve been doing with Dean. It’s different with a goalkeeper, because you have a goalkeeping coach and it works in a slightly different way, although we are very much into goalkeepers training with the team.
“But when you bring a player in, for me, you don’t just bring them in to play with the team, you bring them in to help them develop if they’re at a younger age or to give them what they want, hence the Alex Mighten thing.
“When you send players out, you trust them to be looked after and committed to, and not just sort of thrown back. So that’s my feeling on a loan – you’re bringing them in to commit to them, not just playing time.”
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