Eddie Howe praises Sandro Tonali’s ‘great return’ in shootout win at Forest

Eddie Howe was pleased by Sandro Tonali’s excellent return from his 10-month betting ban and Newcastle’s Carabao Cup progress on penalties against Nottingham Forest.

Wednesday’s second-round tie at the City Ground saw the 24-year-old make his first competitive appearance in 308 days after serving a ban for a series of betting offences.

Tonali performed well during his 62 minutes on the pitch and received a heartwarming reaction from the Newcastle support before and after the 4-3 shoot-out triumph that followed a 1-1 draw at the City Ground.

“I thought he did well,” Magpies boss Howe said of the Italy international. “He was involved in some lovely little passages of play.

“I thought he did well fitness wise considering the lack of match action he’s had. I think he can be really pleased with the reception he got from the Newcastle supporters at the end.

“You could see the amount of Italian flags in the crowd, that embrace with the supporters.

“A lot of emotion coming out from Sandro’s side and, of course, from the supporters’ side back. That connection is so important for any player, and he will be hugely boosted by that.

“But a great day for him, a great return and a positive result.”

Tonali was involved in the move that led Joe Willock to open the scoring after just 18 seconds on the banks of the Trent, where home debutant Jota Silva levelled early in the second half.

Newcastle ended the tie strongly and reacted well to Carlos Miguel saving Joelinton’s spot-kick, with Sean Longstaff wrapping up penalties progress after Ibrahim Sangare and Taiwo Awoniyi missed for Forest.

The reward is a third-round tie away to AFC Wimbledon and the only negative on Wednesday night was a potentially-serious injury sustained by goalscorer Willock.

“A huge blow for him and for us,” Howe said. “He’s scored the goal and we looked good in that moment.

“His absence meant we had to reshuffle our midfield and that’s something we didn’t want to do in that moment at all.

“I just hope it’s not serious. It doesn’t look good, he’s feeling a pain in his thigh, so we’ll have to wait and see how serious it is.”

As for Forest, it was a disappointing end to an evening that left Nuno Espirito Santo proud of the performance from a line-up featuring 10 changes and four debutants.

“We did a good game, our performance was overall positive,” he said.

“We started really badly, a setback where we concede, but the reaction was good and for large spells of the game against Newcastle, a good side, we had good control of the game.

“We dominate, we create, we didn’t finish too well and in the last 10 minutes we suffer.

“There was problems and then we go to penalties. Anything can happen.

“We practice a lot but proud of the work of the players. A lot of players making their debuts.”