Fresh blow leaves star doubtful to face Leeds United with eight out for Nottingham Forest

Jesse Lingard was due to bag his first start since recovering from a hamstring injury in Wednesday night's Carabao Cup second leg at Manchester United but injured his Achilles in the warm up. Emmanuel Dennis instead came into the side for the 2-0 defeat and Forest boss Steve Cooper does not know if Lingard will recover in time to face Leeds.

Forest already had eight players out injured in Ryan Yates (knock), Morgan Gibbs-White (ankle), Dean Henderson (thigh), Taiwo Awoniyi (groin), Cheikhou Kouyate (hamstring) and Moussa Niakhate (hamstring) in addition to Giulian Biancone (ACL) and Omar Richards (hairline fracture of the leg) although the latter duo are not in Forest's 25-man league squad for the second half of the season. In more positive news for Cooper, Jack Colback is back available after illness while the Forest boss says he will have Yates back in around a fortnight.

“It’s frustrating for Jesse," said Cooper of Lingard, as quoted by Nottinghamshire Live. "With it only being Friday today and it happening on Wednesday, it’s still settling down, so we’re not quite sure of the extent of it.

“Jack Colback is back with us after an illness. Apart from that, we’re as we were. We have got injuries, but I don’t want to talk about it, I only want to talk about the lads who are available. That’s where our focus is and our commitment is. We’re preparing as best we can, knowing there’s a tough game coming up against Leeds.

“One thing I can say is, we’ve got to the bottom of Ryan Yates. He’ll be back with us, training and playing, hopefully in two weeks, maybe a tough longer. That’s good. He had a bit of an illness we had to get to the bottom of. It will be good to have him back.”

Asked if there is a chance Lingard could be fit to face the Whites, Cooper reasoned: “I’m not sure. We’re still in the stage of assessing. It’s not even been 48 hours since it happened, so it’s too soon to say.”