Brighton will be looking to hand further opportunities to a trio of injury returnees when they play Nottingham Forest on Sunday, after using the Carabao Cup to their benefit this midweek.
Whether a lack of cup duties in recent days proves to be to Forest’s advantage remains to be seen. On the one hand Nuno Espirito Santo’s side will have the fresher legs when they travel to the Amex Stadium, and can take plenty of confidence with them from last weekend’s win against Liverpool too.
On the other, through progression into a later round than Nuno’s men were able, their next hosts have had the chance to build momentum following the international break and use the occasion to reintegrate players returning from injury into the squad.
As his side saw off the challenge of Wolves to make the competition’s last sixteen, head coach Fabian Hurzeler lauded the return of full-back Pervis Estupinan and midfielder Mats Wieffer.
“I’m not only happy for the substitutes, also players who gained some game time today, especially Pervis Estupinan after a long injury but also Mats, who came back after his injury,” he said. “You see that they need game time to get back into the rhythm. But on top of that, we had some brilliant individual performances.”
The former was making his first club start since returning from injury before the international break, whilst the latter was making his first substitute appearance after picking up a problem on the opening day of the season. Also making a similar return to his Ecuadorian team-mate was Evan Ferguson, who had been sidelined since early April with an ankle issue, and Hurzeler was also pleased with the signs he displayed in a 63-minute outing vs Wolves.
