Nottingham Forest are through to the FA Cup quarter-final after a penalty shootout victory over Ipswich Town.
It’s the second round in succession that Forest needed penalties to edge through after League One outfit Exeter City took them all the way in round four.
Forest made hard work of this one too. George Hirst put Ipswich ahead before Ryan Yates headed the Reds level and then had another goal chalked off with the assistant referee raising the flag to curb the celebrations.
It was a really positive performance by the Reds, however. Okay, hard work was made of despatching a relegation-threatened outfit but the FA Cup can do funny things to teams.
Murillo was hailed for his performance against Ipswich. However, there were a number of top performers and this proved a real shift from a Forest perspective.
Nuno Espirito Santo names the Nottingham Forest player who couldn’t run during Ipswich win
The club’s masseur will be on overtime today! There will be some seriously tired legs at the training ground today and the team need to recover in time to play Manchester City on Saturday.
That game looks a big one and with Ipswich to come away from home after that, the Reds will want to try and stamp their authority on the Premier League table once again.
Ola Aina didn’t take a penalty last night. He’s hardly known for his knack of scoring goals but he wasn’t forthcoming for a penalty on the basis that he could hardly move!
Espirito Santo told Nottinghamshire Live after Aina jumped on his back in celebration: “He said he was so tired, so I said ‘jump on’. He said he was so tired that he couldn’t run!
“Both teams were really exhausted in the end. It’s not easy to go overtime at this stage of the season, but winning helps with the recovery. The legs will get better sooner.”
In recent weeks, the Nigeria international has looked a little bit jaded and subsequently his performance levels have dropped off a little bit.
Aina was back in fine fettle last night though and it’s little wonder that he could hardly walk at the end of the contest.
It’s probably a good thing that he didn’t have to take a penalty kick. The Reds managed to get through with their top five takers all scoring and that was absolutely a huge positive.
Aina is yet to sign a new contract. He’s been in magnificent form during the 2024/25 campaign and hopefully something can be finalised during the closing months of the campaign.
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