Nuno Espirito Santo believes the experience of making his senior England debut can help Morgan Gibbs-White evolve into an even better player with Nottingham Forest.
The attacking midfielder came off the bench for his England debut in the 77th minute of the 2-0 win over the Republic of Ireland last Saturday and produced a lively cameo.
Gibbs-White did not feature in the 2-0 win over Finland in midweek, but Forest head coach believes the experience of working with the national team will only increase the former Wolves player’s confidence.
“It helps, it doesn’t change much because Morgan is always 100 per cent focused,” said Nuno. “But it helps, he is happy, enjoying his football and I see a happy boy. That’s important.
“We, as a club, are very proud, not only for him, but all the players we have seen on international duty. We are delighted for them.
“Morgan has played at all the age stages of the national team, it was a matter of time. He had the quality and ambition to play for England, it was always one of this goals. He achieved it and hopefully he can repeat it.”
Gibbs-White was given his first call-up by interim head coach Lee Carsley, who led England to success in the under-21 European Championships last summer and will almost certainly get straight back into the action with Forest at Liverpool on Saturday.
But Forest do have doubts over both Willy Boly and Ibrahim Sangare, who returned from international duty with Ivory Coast with injuries. Nuno confirmed Boly has a calf problem, but was coy over the nature of Sangare’s injury.
“We have a doubt with him and Boly and we know Danilo is out. We are assessing all of them. We have to wait a little bit to be 100 percent sure,” said Nuno, who confirmed that the majority of players who had been away on international duty were expected at the training ground today.
“All of them are here, with the exception of (Ramon) Sosa who will arrive this afternoon.
“This is the bad part of the international break, that when players return we have to assess them.
“Some of them have had long travels. Some of them have played more or less minutes. We have one day to assess all of them and make decisions.”
In-form striker Chris Wood was among those who have returned without issues and the New Zealand international was training today, having returned from games in the USA.
(Seb Daly/Sportsfile via Getty Images)
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