Nuno Espirito Santo says Nottingham Forest must wait for the results of a scan before they discover the scale of Ola Aina’s injury.
The full-back’s record of starting every Premier League game this season looks unlikely to be maintained at Aston Villa on Saturday after he limped off in the 39th minute of Forest’s 1-0 win over Manchester United on Tuesday night.
Aina, 28, went down with no opposition player near him after appearing to feel something in his lower leg. After lengthy treatment, he was replaced by the on-loan Alex Moreno off the bench — who will be unavailable at Villa Park when Forest face his parent club.
“I cannot say a lot, it is always a concern when a player gets injured by himself,” Nuno said in his post-game news conference. “We will give him a scan and then see how it looks. I am not quite sure what the precise problem is. The scan will tell us more.
Winger Callum Hudson-Odoi missed the win over United while dealing with a personal issue, but is expected to be available at the weekend. Forest hope that Chris Wood’s recovery from a hip injury will continue.
“We will monitor Chris day-by-day still. It is getting better. Tomorrow, I hope it is better again,” said Nuno. “I think we will have Callum back for the weekend, yes. I hope that we will.
“We are going to need everyone in our squad. We have no doubts about that. We will need everyone until the end. But we need to keep our mentality and approach – our togetherness — because we will need everyone.”
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