Cooper won’t risk Awoniyi against Sheffield

Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper says striker Taiwo Awoniyi is most likely to start from the bench again when the Tricky Trees host Sheffield United in their first home game of the season at The City Ground on Friday (today), PUNCH Sports Extra reports.

Awoniyi also started from the bench last week as Forest began the season with a 2-1 loss against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.

The 26-year-old came off the bench to pick up his goal-scoring form from last season as he opened his goal account for the 2023/24 season in the game.

Cooper later explained why the Nigerian striker didn’t start the game against Arsenal, and his latest update on Awoniyi ahead of today’s game is the same.

He mentioned in his post-match interview that Awoniyi as well as Senegalese Moussa Niakhaté were yet to fully recover from injuries and could only play about 15 to 20 minutes.

“Both have had minutes in different ways and forms. Last week Taiwo came on at Arsenal, which was a slight risk because he hadn’t done much training but obviously, when the game is going on, and you’ve got an opportunity to do something like that, you take it.

“They’re in a much better place, both unlucky to pick up injuries as they did in unfortunate ways, but we’re past that now and we’re looking at how to get them back to full fitness and sooner rather than later, they’ll be available to start games, but now, not quite yet.”

Despite being on the sidelines for some part of last season, Awoniyi was Forest’s highest goal scorer with 10 goals in the EPL.