Nottingham Forest go to fc porto on Thursday for the first leg of their Europa League quarter-final, carrying a Premier League survival fight into one of the toughest away nights in the competition. Chris Wood travelled to Portugal with the squad after months out, giving Vítor Pereira one more option as Forest try to manage two fronts at once.
Forest are only three points above the relegation zone after a 3-0 win over Tottenham before the international break, and the Opta supercomputer has them down as having an 8.9% chance of going down while also giving them a 10% chance of winning the Europa League. That is the contradiction at the heart of their season: a club close enough to trouble at home that every league point matters, yet deep enough into Europe to be one of the last eight teams left standing.
This is Forest's fifth quarter-final in a major European competition and their first since the 1995-96 UEFA Cup, a mark that speaks to how rare nights like this have become for a club with a different kind of history. They also know what Portugal can offer: in January, their only away European match in the country this season ended in a 1-0 loss at Braga.
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Porto have made the Estádio do Dragão a hard place to survive. They have won all five of their home games in the Europa League this season, and only once in their history have they won six home games in a single European campaign, back in 2010-11. Forest will have to cut through that record without losing sight of what comes three days later, when Aston Villa arrive at the City Ground.
Pereira put the balancing act plainly. He said the priority was to win the next match, called the Europa League important while stressing the need to keep Forest in the Premier League, and added that he must find balance between the two competitions if the team is to compete on Thursday and again against Villa three days later. He also said players have to feel important and believe they have the quality to help the club now.
Wood is part of that calculation. Pereira said the striker had started training with the team and was available for the match, adding that he was experienced, scored goals and needed to be ready because Forest have many challenges ahead. Wood had been sidelined since October and underwent knee surgery in December, so even his trip to Portugal is a step forward. Whether he is ready to shape a quarter-final at the Dragão is another matter, but Forest's season has reached the point where every fit body matters.
