Boss Steve Cooper has explained his decision to leave skipper Joe Worrall out of the Nottingham Forest starting XI against Fulham.
The defender dropped to the bench as one of three changes made by the Reds head coach, who brought summer signing Willy Boly into the back line for his debut. Remo Freuler replaced Cheikhou Kouyate and Taiwo Awoniyi came in for Jesse Lingard as the other alterations to the team.
Awoniyi got the hosts off to the perfect start, opening the scoring with a header after 11 minutes. But Forest were then left reeling from three goals in six second half minutes which put the Cottagers 3-1 up.
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The new-look defence of Boly, Steve Cook and Scott McKenna was quickly disbanded after that, as Cooper tried to find a way back into the game. Worrall got the nod as the head coach turned to his substitutes to make a difference.
Asked about Worrall being left out of the starting line-up, Cooper said: “They are all difficult decisions. Everyone wants to play and have an impact.
“I know we’ve conceded three again, but I just felt there needed to be some changes, in terms of trying to get a better rhythm in the team and not conceding goals. I’m not saying that was down to Joe in any way, shape or form, but we just tried to make a few changes to help.
“At times, we looked fine. And then those five minutes have cost us.
“My job is to always try to pick a team to win a football game. We’ve not done that.”
He added: “There are some bits of our game which are good, or getting better. And there’s other parts of our game where we do look like we’re a new team.
“That’s the sort of stuff that sometimes you address in pre-season. But we’re addressing it right in the middle of the Premier League.
“But we look no further than ourselves. That’s where we’re at. The only thing we can do is continue to work hard, try to address that and improve.”
Lewis O’Brien came off the bench to give the Reds a lifeline with little more than 10 minutes to go. But although there was a late push to rescue a point, Forest suffered a fourth defeat in a row going into the international break.
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