A great opportunity missed, says Ange, after late collapse

ANGE Postecoglou has warned his Nottingham Forest players nothing will come easy after they were knocked out of the Carabao Cup in dramatic fashion by Swansea City.

- By SARAH CLAPSON

Igor Jesus' brace had put the Reds firmly in control of the third-round tie in south Wales. But after Cameron Burgess had reduced the deficit with 20 minutes to go, the hosts scored twice in added time to turn the game on its head.

Burgess bagged the winner in the 97th minute, a few minutes after Zan Vipotnik's leveller had looked to send the match to penalties. It left a bitterly disappointed Postecoglou ruing a missed opportunity and still searching for his first victory.

"It was very disappointing. It was a game we were well in control of and we should have seen it out a lot better than we did," the Forest boss said after his team's 3-2 defeat.

"We certainly had the opportunities to kill the game off in the second half. I just got a sense the players thought it was sort of just going to happen automatically that we were totally in control of the game. It's cup football. We should have been a lot more prepared for what was going to come and handled it a lot better than we did.

"It's not about me. It's about the club. It's about us progressing and creating an environment where we can have real success.

"Tonight was a great opportunity for us to progress in a cup and give ourselves an opportunity to get that success. To let it slip is hugely disappointing.

"We need to understand we are going to have to earn everything we are going to get; it’s not just going to come to us. I just got the feeling tonight that towards the end we just thought it would naturally pan out that we would win the game. That's not how football works.

"You learn a lot from everything. From my perspective, you understand some of the things we need to work on so we can get to where we want to."

Forest had chances to build on the advantage handed to them by Jesus.