For Vitor Pereira, progress in the Europa League is potentially both a blessing and a curse.
Fenerbahce were edged out on aggregate on Thursday, but this was a night when some of Nottingham Forest’s key players were supposed to benefit from a rest ahead of a huge game at Brighton in the Premier League.
Instead, Pereira learned a lesson that would have been all too familiar to Sean Dyche and Ange Postecoglou: Forest are a very different prospect without their key figures. To put it more bluntly, they are greatly diminished without them in the side.
Postecoglou gave some of the fringe players an opportunity back in September at Swansea City in the Carabao Cup — and they were duly knocked out in south Wales. Dyche subsequently shuffled his pack in north Wales after taking on the job, and Forest were dumped out of the FA Cup by Wrexham.
He gave others a chance in Braga. What followed was one of the most uninspiring Forest performances of the modern era.
With a pair of huge fixtures approaching at Brighton on Sunday and title chasing Manchester City next Wednesday — and with his side holding a 3-0 lead from the first leg in Istanbul — it was understandable that the most recent incumbent of the job, Pereira, made changes for the second leg of this play-off round.
But, while Forest can now look forward to a last-16 tie against either Real Betis or Midtjylland as their European adventure continues, this was a night when Fenerbahce threatened to stage a remarkable comeback.
For Vitor Pereira, the Fenerbahce game will have been an education (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
The fact that the Turkish team were eventually seen off was largely because the most important performances in the Forest ranks were delivered by some of the quartet of senior players Pereira introduced at half-time. One of those, Ola Aina, cleverly found the space to deliver a perfect ball to the far post to pick out another substitute, Callum Hudson-Odoi. He drove a shot inside the far post for what was the most important goal of the night.
Kerem Akturkoglu had previously netted his second of the game via a penalty, awarded in the first minute of the second half, to give the visitors a 2-0 lead and raise the already noisy volume levels among the travelling fans. With the score 3-2 on aggregate, Hudson-Odoi’s 68th minute strike was desperately needed to calm the mood at an increasingly nervy City Ground.
Before then, the prospect of an unexpected end to their first European adventure in three decades had begun to feel increasingly realistic.
In the seconds after the ball hit the back of the net, the television cameras panned to the directors’ box, where Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis could be seen crossing his chest in a clear gesture of relief. Such emotions would have been entirely justified. Forest got the job done in the end — and Igor Jesus and Omari Hutchinson both came close to scoring more goals — but Pereira must now figure out a way to combine the challenge of plotting a course away from the threat of relegation and earning a place in the quarter-finals in Europe.
Evangelos Marinakis watches on from his seat in the directors’ box (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)
More immediately, he must find a way to juggle his resources to cope with the demands of two top-flight games in four days.
The irony is that Forest invested £200million ($269.9m) on 13 new additions in the summer with the precise intention of giving themselves the capability of fielding two different teams, if required. But, with the exception of Jesus and Omari Hutchinson — and more recently Stefan Ortega — it is when the same core of players from last season start that Forest are at their strongest.
Otherwise James McAtee continues to look like a player stripped of belief. In training, he is regularly one of the brightest performers. But he has so far failed to reflect that consistently in matches. There are mitigating factors for the £30m signing from Manchester City, primarily that his opportunities have been so sporadic.
Dilane Bakwa was regarded as one the brightest prospects in European football when he joined from Strasbourg for a similar fee. But he has suffered similar problems. Lorenzo Lucca, the January loan signing from Napoli, continues to look awkward up front. Morato suffers mainly from the fact he is not at the same level as the established pair of Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic in the centre of defence.
Neco Williams kicks away a flare (Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
When the regular back four of Aina, Milenkovic, Murillo and Neco Williams is altered for any reason, they look weaker for it.
Without Ibraham Sangere and Elliot Anderson sitting in front of that back line, the same is true. Hutchinson, Morgan Gibbs-White, Hudson-Odoi and Jesus — in the absence of Chris Wood — are the best attacking quartet.
But with 11 Premier League games remaining and at least two — hopefully more — Europa League fixtures to come, Pereira will not be able to call upon that XI in every game.
The new head coach had intended to use Williams and Anderson for only 45 minutes against Fenerbahce, but circumstances dictated that both ended up playing the full match. He had not wanted to use Hudson-Odoi off the bench at all. Something has to change if the demands on such figures are not going to prove onerously high.
Pereira insisted in the aftermath that he has sympathy for his fringe players because they have not been afforded the opportunity to properly settle into the side; to build any momentum or, most crucially, to build relationships with those around them on the pitch. When they have had a chance, it has normally been in a side that has been heavily altered, rather than tinkered with in moderation.
It may not be easy to change that dynamic now.
“If I say that I am not happy with the players that started, I am not being fair with them. Because I believe that if, instead of changing five players, I had changed only one or two, it would have been completely different,” said Pereira in his press conference. “It was my responsibility, because I was thinking about the next game. I took the risk.
“It is a lesson for me. I did not expect a fantastic game, when I made five changes. But after I suffer a bit, after the supporters suffer a bit, we did what we needed to.”
Less than two weeks and three games into his tenure, Pereira finds himself needing to succeed where his predecessors failed — by finding the right balance when utilising his resources.