Nottingham Forest vs Man City: Steve Cooper reveals drastic action club have taken amid 10 injuries

Steve Cooper has revealed Nottingham Forest have applied to the Premier League to see if they can register Steve Cook in their 25-man squad ahead of Saturday’s clash against Manchester City.

Forest have been hit with a spate of injuries and could have as many as 10 players missing for the visit of the champions this weekend. Cooper’s issues were only compounded last time out against Fulham, with centre-backs Willy Boly and Scott McKenna replaced inside the opening seven minutes, leaving them short of options in defence.

It’s for that reason Forest are hoping they’ll be allowed to register Cook, who played 12 times for the Midlands club in the first half of the season but was omitted from their Premier League squad earlier this month following the January arrival of Felipe from Atletico Madrid.

“It’s not great. Scott is going to be out for six weeks. Willy is even worse and we’re looking at longer than three months. It’s not the news we were hoping for,” Cooper said on Thursday.

“We have applied through Premier League rules to bring Steve back into the 25-man squad,” he added. “We are more than hopeful it will be fine, we are expecting that to happen with the circumstances we find ourselves in.

“He has had a very productive 12 months for us, we’re all fond of him here. He has been good, been very professional and with it happening so quickly it’s felt pretty normal. He’s been really positive, a lesser man maybe would have been a bit different.

“I know it’s a bit of a talking point, our injuries, but there’s no crying from us. We’d like it to be different but we have to be positive, we have to play with a can-do mentality because if we don’t no-one else will believe us.

Cooper also gave an update on the fitness of Ryan Yates and Jesse Lingard ahead of the clash with City, both of whom are major doubts for Saturday’s game.

“Yatesy is back training with us now but not at 100 percent, so he won’t be available for the weekend,” said the Forest boss. “There’s a couple more things we have to do with him before he really gets right at it, which is obviously typical Yatesy style. But we’re hoping he really steps up next week into 100 percent full training.

“Jesse is still nurturing two niggles, his Achilles’ and his knee, that he’s struggled to get rid of completely, and it’s held him back at times. We’re working with him. We’ll see on the weekend or beyond that, we don’t know.”

Forest’s other injuries include: Dean Henderson, Omar Richards, Cheikhou Kouyate, Giulian Biancone, Moussa Niakhate and Taiwo Awoniyi.