Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche said in an interview with Sky Sports: “The fatal thing for us was conceding the goal. We responded a little bit and then they scored the second goal. I said at half-time we have to reconsider. Then we conceded the goal very quickly and the third goal was poor. There’s no doubt about the result – they were better than us.”
“We made a late change and it wasn’t perfect. You have to do the basics and we didn’t do that. The goal was poor for our standards. You can’t pass up an opportunity like that at this level. The mentality at the end was good and we’re still working on it but it could have been out of jail. Our performance wasn’t there.”
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On playing against the atmosphere at Elland Road: “We all know where they are and what you have to do. We deal with other teams better than we deal with them. We are turning the game around, but it was just a bad first goal.”
On whether he regrets missing the chance in the 0-0 game: “That’s the truth of football. It’s all what-ifs and what-ifs after the game. We had two very good chances and we didn’t squander them – it can happen. I was very frustrated with the goal. Basic principles were thrown out the window.”
Regarding the impact of having to make late changes: “It’s not a perfect scenario when you lose a centre-back at the end. All the substitutes did well when they came on. There were positives in their reaction and we kept going in the final stages, but the negative for me was three bad goals.”
On the need to move on: “Things always move very fast. There’s a lot of good work done here and it’s a reminder that if you don’t keep your foot on the gas, you can get hurt at this level.”
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Listen to more from Dyche on BBC Sounds
did you know?
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Nottingham Forest have lost two of their last three Premier League games against promoted teams, more than the 15 such games since promotion in 2022.
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Zach Abbott, now 19 years and 269 days old, becomes the third teenager to start for Forest in the Premier League, following Marlon Harwood against West Ham United in 1998 and Chris Doig against Coventry City in 1999.
