Nuno Espirito Santo stressed the importance of taking the positives once the “sadness and bad humour goes away”, after Nottingham Forest were beaten in the FA Cup semi-finals by Manchester City.
The Tricky Trees went behind inside two minutes to Rico Lewis’ strike at Wembley, and were up against it when Josko Gvardiol thumped in a second-half header.
But half-time substitute Anthony Elanga missed a great chance a minute after coming on and just before Gvardiol’s goal, while Morgan Gibbs-White twice hit the woodwork and Taiwo Awoniyi also struck the post.
Asked by ITV how his side failed to score, Nuno pointed to Gibbs-White and jokingly said: “Ask him!”
He then added: “No, but Anthony also has a good chance. We are there. It’s important to build on that and take the positives after the sadness and bad humour goes away. It helps us in the future.”
There was a bit of surprise that Elanga was not chosen to start the game, especially considering the instant impact he nearly provided after a first half in which Forest did not muster a single shot.
Asked about that decision, Nuno said: “We had a lot of situations to decide. It was not an easy week to put a team together.
“We had a game plan, everything changed after the goal we conceded, the way we responded was really positive.”
Our @EmiratesFACup campaign comes to an end. pic.twitter.com/10QeirAHT0
— Nottingham Forest (@NFFC) April 27, 2025
Forest exit this season’s edition with just one win in regulation time from five games (drawn three, lost one), having progressed from the previous three rounds all via penalty shoot-outs (against Exeter, Ipswich and Brighton).
But the efforts that hit the woodwork from Gibbs-White might leave Forest with a sense of ‘what if?’, albeit the first was extremely unlucky after an expertly hit volley.
The second, though, saw him round Stefan Ortega and hit the post when he might have expected to score.
Gibbs-White, himself, apologised, saying: “It’s devastating. I feel sorry for the fans. I hold my hands up and apologise. I should have scored at least one of them [chances].
“I’ve never hit a ball as sweetly on my weak foot in my life [for the first chance]. As soon as that hit the crossbar, I knew it wasn’t going to be our day.
“I should score that one [second chance]. I go around the keeper and if I score, that gives everyone in the stadium energy to try and go again.
“Even though we were 2-0 down, we showed resilience and kept fighting. That is the main thing.”
