Nuno Espirito Santo on Nottingham Forest's 3-0 defeat at Manchester City

04/12/2024  Eithad Stadium, Manchester, UK.

Transcript

00:00What did you make of the performance?

00:17When you lose 3-0 and you come and say it was a good performance, maybe people don't

00:23understand so I will not say it was a bad performance because there are positive things

00:28for us in the game. Of course there are a lot of bad things, mistakes, but the idea

00:35of us coming and facing City, knowing the difficulties we are going to face and try,

00:41I think we challenged ourselves in going, trying to press, not sit down, going for the

00:48game, we had chances, we didn't achieve, then you lose, but us internally I think we

01:02come out proud of ourselves because we try, we try and for sure this game will allow us

01:08to grow.

01:10Was it just a simple matter of if one of those chances goes in, maybe Chris Wood for example,

01:14the game could have been very different?

01:16That is important, that minute is very important, it doesn't reflect the whole game by itself

01:22but that minute definitely is very important for sure.

01:26Nuno, obviously City have not been winning matches but Pep Guardiola said they have not

01:32played that much different this evening to some of the defeats, but when someone like

01:37Kevin De Bruyne is in the game as he hasn't been, how difficult is it as an opponent to

01:43try and stop him, to try and nullify him?

01:46It's very difficult, very difficult because of the quality, it's not only Kevin De Bruyne,

01:50their quality all over the pitch and the wide areas, it's very difficult to individually

01:58control these kind of players, it requires always covers, helps, but if someone, I didn't

02:07have doubts, I think no one in this room has ever doubted the quality of City players and

02:12their managers, so we know that we had a hard task ahead of us, but honestly, I must

02:19be very honest to myself and to my players, I think we went for it, and we lose, ok, that

02:30can happen in football, but to challenge ourselves, I think that can reflect for the next games

02:40I hope.

02:42Do you think you created so many chances at a place like this?

02:50Yes, yes, that's the positive part of the game also, I think it's not easy and the way

02:55we created the chances, we recovered the ball in the areas that we wanted to recover the

03:02ball, in the beginning of the second half, even though we were 2-0 down, we went for

03:08it, we controlled, we were dominant, we created chances, and of course when you don't achieve

03:13and you're allowed spaces in your back, it's always hard, and after the third goal it becomes

03:21very hard.

03:22Could I ask as well, was Ryan Yates a tactical change or was he injured?

03:27It was a decision, yeah, it was, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's ok.

03:33Any more?

03:34No.

03:35Thank you very much.