Super Eagles and Nottingham Forest defender, Ola Aina, has slammed the officials involved in his side's clash against Leicester City following Taiwo Awoniyi's abdominal injury.
Aina and Awoniyi are teammates at the club and International level, and both players were on the pitch when the former Union Berlin striker clashed against the woodwork under pressure from Facundo Buonanotte when he tried to latch onto a pass from Anthony Elanga.
Awoniyi tried to continue the game, but he was in so much pain and had to be withdrawn. Forest ended the game with ten men as they'd already used up the maximum number of substitutes allowed. This further led to a clash between the club coach, Nuno Espirito Santo and the club owner, Evangelos Marinakis.
The former Liverpool striker had surgery Monday night after it was confirmed that he'd ruptured an intestine. He was then placed into an induced coma, and the remainder of the procedure was completed on Wednesday.
Nottingham Forest's Taiwo Awoniyi has woken from an induced coma after undergoing surgery to repair a serious abdominal injury.
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) May 14, 2025
Having had the first part of the surgery on Monday, he spent Tuesday in an induced coma as medical staff monitored his progress as part of the… pic.twitter.com/Ab1A31ppnN
Awoniyi is now out of the coma and is responding well to treatment, but Aina, in an interview with Mail Sport, admitted the whole situation could've been avoided if the linesman simply raised his flag.
“This is our teammate and brother and someone we spend most of the year with. It affects everybody in some sort of way. All we can do is show our support, and hopefully, everything goes well for him now.
“It’s horrible seeing someone you are close with go through something like this, but I pray to God everything goes to plan and goes well and that we will be hearing from him soon. I have sent him messages. We all have.
“I didn’t even know what happened at the time and I didn’t realise how serious it was. When I saw him come back on, I thought, “He will run it off”.
“I thought it was one of those things. I know from my experience that when I get hurt, I think I can come back on. You don’t want to stop,” the 28-year-old said.
“Anthony was miles offside. The whole world could see and so could I from where I was. You think ‘offside’ straight away. Surely you could just lift the flag up?
‘”Personally I liked how it was back in the day when for offside they just put it up straight away. A simple decision and get on with the game.
“Having to see it out and then just see this happen. Well, none of this would have happened to Taiwo if the flag had just gone up, would it?” Aina remarked.
The Football World rallied round Awoniyi, as several players and fans wished him a speedy recovery from his surgical operation.
