Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper has accused Blackburn of letting Lewis O’Brien down after his deadline-day loan move did not go through.
The Forest midfielder was set to join the Championship side on Tuesday but they could not get the deal sheet in before the 11pm deadline and it did not go ahead.
Blackburn say it was due to issues out of their control and are appealing the EFL’s decision on rejecting the transfer.
Cooper, who subsequently left the player out of his 25-man squad for the Premier League, was not happy with how the matter has been handled.
“It wasn’t us, that’s for sure – even though we’ve ended up with the problem it wasn’t us,” he said ahead of Sunday’s game with Leeds.
“It won’t take a genius to work out what has happened. I hope some questions are getting asked over there in Lancashire.
“We will look after him, we won’t let him down, and try and treat him like a pro footballer who works hard and cares about his career.
“Really frustrating, he’s a player we like, a player who works really hard and he’s a good guy.
“Through conversations we agreed he could go on loan and after making that decision two things happen, you let the player go and you hope he has a positive experience and then plan around his departure and a 25-man squad.
“So for that to happen when it was no fault of Nottingham Forest’s, we did everything in time and correct in the process.
“For him to be let down in the way he was, it’s a problem that’s ended up back in our training ground. I feel for the lad.
“We will find a solution for him, we’ll look after him and we won’t let him down. We look after our players better than that, we’ll find a solution because he deserves it.”
Forest take on Leeds and could include a number of recent signings.
They brought in Keylor Navas, Felipe and Jonjo Shelvey on deadline day and then added Andre Ayew on a free transfer on Thursday.
The club are waiting on Jesse Lingard’s fitness after he was injured in the warm-up for the Carabao Cup game against Manchester United and he could join a lengthy injury list.
“Jesse is an injury from United, frustrating for him and that’s still settling down,” said Cooper. “We don’t know whether he will be fit.
“Apart from that Jack Colback is back after illness. We’re as we were. We have got injuries but I only want to talk about the lads who are available.
“We’re preparing the best we can knowing there’s a tough game coming up against Leeds.
“We have got to the bottom of Ryan Yates and he’ll be back training and playing in two weeks, he had a bit of an illness we had to get to the bottom of.”
