Pereira provides latest injury update on Gibbs-White ahead of Europa League semi-final second leg

Vitor Pereira says he has not yet decided whether Nottingham Forest star Morgan Gibbs-White will be involved in the Europa League semi-final second leg against Aston Villa.

Gibbs-White suffered a nasty cut to his forehead after a collision with Robert Sanchez during Forest’s 3-1 win over Chelsea on Monday and is a doubt for their Europa League game on Thursday.

“He has pain, for sure,” Pereira said on the midfielder. “We will see. We have until tomorrow to see if he is able or not. We will see.

“It is a big question. This is not a question for me, it is a decision between the player, the medical department and myself. But we didn’t (yet) have the last meeting to decide.

“I really don’t know. The doubts you have about Morgan are the same doubts I have.

“We will have a meeting today. We have until tomorrow to see, and we will see what we can do.

“But if Morgan cannot play, we will still start with 11 players. He is a very important player for us but we are ready to face this match.

“I honestly hope he can play and can help us tomorrow. But in case it’s not possible, we’ll play with another (player), and this one, for sure, will try to be the best player on the pitch.”

Asked if he has had a protective mask fitted, Pereira said: “I think so, but I don’t know the colour! I think yesterday he went to make the mask.”

Forest are 1-0 ahead in the tie after their first-leg win, but are also waiting to decide whether Murillo,Ola Aina, Ibrahim Sangare and Dan Ndoye can be involved.

“We have a lot of (injury) doubts,” Pereira said. “We can have doubts about the players (who might be fit), but we cannot have doubts about the spirit, about what we want, about how we believe, about resilience, about what we should do tactically. This is something we cannot doubt.

“About the (injured) players, I have a lot (of doubts). I think today we will have a meeting and decide to look for the army and to understand the soldiers! To go into the battle, I prefer to go with the healthy soldiers. We’ll see.”