Morgan Gibbs-White’s availability for Nottingham Forest‘s Europa League semi-final second leg with Aston Villa remains ‘a big question’, according to head coach Vitor Pereira.
Forest lead the tie 1-0 after beating Villa in the first leg at City Ground courtesy of a Chris Wood penalty. They are seeking to reach a major European final for the first time since their European Cup triumph in 1980.
But there is doubt over the in-form Gibbs-White as Forest aim to secure a place in the Istanbul showpiece against either Sporting Braga or Freiburg.
Gibbs-White came off the bench as a much-changed Forest team claimed a 3-1 win at Chelsea on Monday to take a big step towards Premier League survival. The forward teed up Taiwo Awoniyi for Forest’s third goal but was later taken off after suffering a deep facial laceration in a collision with Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, who was also taken off with a head injury.
Nottingham Forest boss provides Gibbs-White update
While Gibbs-White avoided a concussion, it is still up in the air whether he will feature at Villa Park.
“He has pain, for sure,” Pereira said of Gibbs-White. “We will see. We have until tomorrow to see if he is able or not. We will see.
“It is a big question. This is not a question for me, it is a decision between the player, the medical department and myself. But we didn’t [yet] have the last meeting to decide.
“I really don’t know. The doubts you have about Morgan are the same doubts I have.
“We will have a meeting today. We have until tomorrow to see, and we will see what we can do.
“But if Morgan cannot play, we will still start with 11 players. He is a very important player for us but we are ready to face this match.
“I honestly hope he can play and can help us tomorrow. But in case it’s not possible, we’ll play with another [player], and this one, for sure, will try to be the best player on the pitch.”
Asked about Gibbs-White wearing a protective mask, Pereira added: “I think so, but I don’t know the colour! I think yesterday he went to make the mask.”
Zack Abbott also came off with a head injury against Chelsea, the full-back having collided with Blues teenager Jesse Derry, who had to be carried off on a stretcher.
“I think he is OK,” Pereira said of Abbott. “We spoke yesterday and he is in a good condition. I think he is available for the game.
“We have a lot of [injury] doubts. We can have doubts about the players [fitness], but we cannot have doubts about the spirit, about what we want, about how we believe, about resilience, about what we should do tactically. This is something we cannot doubt.
“About the [injured] players, I have a lot [of doubts]. I think today we will have a meeting and decide to look for the army and to understand the soldiers! To go into the battle, I prefer to go with the healthy soldiers. We’ll see.”
