When Nottingham Forest lost Steve Cook and Scott McKenna to injury it looked like their promotion push may suffer.
The duo have been integral to Forest's charge up the Championship table since Cook arrived from Bournemouth on a free transfer in January. McKenna suffered a hamstring injury in the win against QPR but remarkably returned without missing a league game. However, Cook has not featured in the last three after hobbling off against Reading.
In theory, Forest will be desperate to get the 30-year-old back, but such has been the form of Tobias Figueiredo, there is now a case to be made that Cook will have to bide his time when fit again. Forest legend Garry Birtles says Figueiredo has been excellent, including last night's 2-0 win over Coventry City, but Cook must still come straight back into the 11 when he returns from his ankle injury. That is scheduled to happen towards the end of the month.
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"Coventry, if they had a cutting edge upfront, it would have been a lot closer. Their build up play was good and they moved the ball well, but we had three defenders again who coped magnificently," Birtles said on the latest Garibaldi Red podcast.
"Figueiredo has come in and done a great job alongside McKenna and Worrall. When you've got that base of those three, that confidence is evident to see through the rest of the side.
"As a striker, I knew when I had Burns, Lloyd, Anderson and Clark or Barrett behind me I could do my thing and everything would be ok. That's the feeling I get throughout the team now. There's been so many good performances. This was a total team performance.
"I would have Cook straight back in still. That's no detriment to anyone else. He was outstanding when he was in there and he brings an air of confidence to the team.
"It's like with Samba coming back. I think he's the best goalkeeper. He has to learn from what he did (getting sent off against Stoke).
"It looks like he has because I don't think Steve (Cooper) would have put him back in. Horvath coming in, he showed great composure but I think Samba deserves to be number one. He's proved himself over a number of years.
"When we played, David Needham came to the club. Larry Lloyd and Kenny Burns were the number one defenders.
"When Larry got injured David came in and was magnificent, but when Larry was fit again, Brian Clough said, 'sorry David, Larry is the number one'.
"Larry and the gaffer didn't get on particularly well as Larry was outspoken. Tough decisions have to be made and you have to go with your best 11."
You can listen to the full episode here, or watch it here.
