NOTTINGHAM Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo stated that there were “other ways to stop the game” when discussing Philip Billing’s red card, stating that Cherries midfielder’s tackle was an “obvious” dismissal.

With scores locked at 1-1 in the 84th minute following Justin Kluivert’s early opener and Callum Hudson-Odoi’s equaliser on the stroke of half-time, Cherries found themselves down to 10 men when Billing cynically took out Hudson-Odoi on the counter.

There was outcry towards match official Rebecca Welch when she reached for a red card, the referee deeming Billing’s challenge to have been excessive as the Dane caught Hudson-Odoi on the Achilles.

Hudson-Odoi has twice been sidelined by an injury to his Achilles, leaving Forest up in arms over the challenge.

However, it appears that Hudson-Odoi came through the game unscathed.

Discussing the incident, Nuno began: “It's obvious that it's a red card, and it's not fair, because I think with all my respects with Billing, I hope he understands when he listens to these words, there's other ways to stop the game.

“There's other ways without compromising the player, you know what I mean?

“There's other ways.”
Despite having a man advantage for the remaining six minutes plus eight minutes of added time, Forest were unable to test their hosts.

“I think we should have done better, but there were not too many good decisions,” continued Nuno.

“We didn't really threaten Bournemouth in these final moments of the game.

“The team was unbalanced.

“If we look at the last minutes of the game, we could have done more.”

Discussing the referee’s performance as a whole, the Portuguese continued: “It was a tough game to whistle.

“The players on both teams were arguing and it was not easy.

“Not easy at all for the referee today.”

Nuno did not have any qualms about his own booking.

“Because I asked for the yellow card, it was fair,” he replied when asked why he was shown a yellow card.