Nottingham Forest manager Nuno Espírito Santo has thrown his weight behind Nigeria forward Taiwo Awoniyi following a difficult start to the season.
The 27-year-old attacker has yet to score or register an assist since the commencement of the 2024/25 football campaign.
Despite his goal-scoring drought, Nuno Espírito Santo has expressed full confidence in the Nigerian forward, who enjoyed a decent performance last season.
“It’s his fitness, his confidence and he is looking for his goal,” Nuno said of Awoniyi. “Everything changes in the mindset of a striker when you score; suddenly everything comes. We are waiting for this click. We trust him.
“What we have been trying with T is to increase his game time. Unfortunately, if I look back, going into the previous (October) international break, he played and then immediately went with his national team and played five minutes. That was a step back.
“We had him for all of the last international break and he was able to play 60 minutes in a very hard game (against Arsenal). It was a very physical game against tough centre halves, and he did very well.
“We will try to keep progressing on that aspect with T, because we need all the players. T and Chris (Wood) are the specific strikers that we have.”
Awoniyi has made 10 appearances across competitions for Nottingham Forest this season.