Steve Cooper says Nottingham Forest “really want to attack” in their Carabao Cup semi-final against Manchester United. The two legs will be played over the next fortnight.
The first leg takes place at the City Ground on Wednesday night. Regardless of the result the two teams will meet again for the second encounter a week later.
Speaking to the press on Monday, Cooper previewed Forest’s semi-final first leg, saying: “It’s not been an easy ride for sure to get to the semi-final, and we’ve treated it like every other game, one we want to do well in and win.
“Unfortunately we’re out of the FA Cup, we’re not very proud of that and the way we went about it, but these two games now fall in a two-week Premier League break.
“There’s enough recovery and preparation time to be ready for these games, there’s no doubt about that. The two games have come at a good time.
“It’s a semi-final, we really want to commit to it, we really want to attack it. Obviously it’s Man United, it’s over two legs, incredibly tough games — but ones we want to have no regrets about.
“We’re in the semi-final of an important cup. I think we should go into it thinking they don’t come along very often, so treat it like it might be the last one.
“There’s a real good feeling about the semi-final in the city, the stadium will obviously be the atmosphere that it’s been every single game so far this season, which has been incredible, and we should really embrace that.”
Forest were beaten 3-0 by United in the league back in December.
Cooper added: “We felt that we didn’t play with enough belief and courage in the game.
“It was going to be hard whatever, and we might have played better and still got nothing out of the game. But we did walk off the pitch thinking we could have done a bit better there, and I don’t want that in these games, I don’t want any regrets.
“We’re feeling a good pressure of wanting to do well, and I just want to make sure we go into the games with a real positive mindset, I want the players to believe they can succeed.
“Of course we’ll respect United and their strengths and there’s many of them, they’re dangerous in so many ways. But we have to believe we can play well in this game and that we can have a positive contribution.”
