By admin 
A few days ago, Steve Cooper had talked about this being Nottingham Forest’s “most intense week” of pre-season.
He could hardly have envisaged how his team’s training camp in Spain would end. The Reds’ third friendly didn’t exactly pan out how they might have thought.
Forest got the win, beating Levante 2-1 at their opponents’ training ground with goals from Ryan Yates and Danilo. But a sending off for Taiwo Awoniyi just before the break made for a tough second 45 minutes for the visitors amid soaring temperatures.
Reading too much into pre-season results and performances is always unwise. Nevertheless, here are some things which caught our eye in Saturday’s match.
No chance of Reds fans being able to jump into the sea after the midfielder found the back of the net, with the game played behind closed doors. But it was a terrific finish by Yates with less than a minute on the clock.
He’s eager to get his first goal in the Premier League, having almost done so on a few occasions last term. And if he takes up a more advanced role, as he did against Levante, you wouldn’t bet against him getting on the scoresheet a few times this time around.
“I just want to really be relentless in trying to improve,” Yates said last weekend. “After the first couple of weeks of the summer I got itchy feet again and just started thinking about football and what I want to get out of the season.
“It’s alright for a couple of weeks, but then you just want to crack on again. I was watching Morgan (Gibbs-White, for England Under-21s) and thinking it would be nice to be out there. I want to add some goals from midfield, especially if I’m going to play a little bit higher, as a No.8, then that will be massive for me.”
Yates looked fantastic playing higher up the pitch. It’s evident that he and Cooper discussed it before of the upcoming season, and it’ll be intriguing to see if he takes on that role in the remaining friendlies.
Dangerous Danilo
There is already a lot of anticipation for what Danilo has in store for this term. This might be a pivotal year for him.
He improved dramatically in a short period of time after moving to the City Ground in January. And at the age of 22, there is still a lot of space for development. He has the potential to improve much farther.
He was lively against Levante and made some threatening runs early on, before eventually coming away with something to show for them. It was a nice bit of play between the Brazilian and Yates. He was a little fortunate with the way the ball ricocheted into his path, but he finished well with his right foot.
With Morgan Gibbs-White out for a prolonged period following his exploits with England Under-21s and Brennan Johnson out, Forest’s starting lineup lacked flare and inventiveness. Danilo, on the other hand, is a player who is always eager to get forward. Even though it is only a friendly, getting on the scoresheet will be a wonderful confidence boost as he looks to score plenty more goals when the meaningful action begins.