Steve Cooper makes Brennan Johnson admission after key Nottingham Forest moment in Sheffield United draw | OneFootball

Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper has insisted that Brennan Johnson will learn from his penalty miss in his side’s 1-1 draw at Sheffield United on Friday night.

With the scores locked at 0-0, Forest were handed a big opportunity to open the scoring just after the half-hour mark, when Djed Spence was brought down inside in the Sheffield United area by Rhys Norrington-Davies.

Johnson stepped up to take the penalty, but fired his spot kick straight down the middle, with Wes Foderingham standing his ground in the Blades’ goal to make the save.

It looked as though Forest would be made to pay for that when Billy Sharp opened the scoring with 20 minutes remaining, only for Ryan Yates’ stoppage time header to salvage a deserved point for Cooper’s side.

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Now it seems that Cooper is not too concerned about that miss from Johnson, given the learning it could provide him in the long term.

Offering his verdict on that missed opportunity from Johnson after the game, Cooper was quoted by Nottinghamshire Live as saying: “With regards to Brennan, he needs these moments. He’ll be disappointed, but he needs these moments to become the player that he is going to become.

“I don’t worry about him for one second, because what hurts you makes you stronger. You need to go through moments like that. He’ll be on the next one, that’s for sure.

“His character is more than fine. For all of the good bits you see, and what we see a lot of, right underneath is a really determined player that works really, really hard and is a real winner.

“He’ll obviously be disappointed that he’s missed a penalty, but I know these things are good for you. That’s what it will prove to be.”

That result has left Forest eighth in the Championship table, two points adrift of the play-off places, with an FA Cup Quarter Final against Huddersfield on Monday night next on the agenda for Cooper and his side.

This feels like some rather good man-management from Cooper following that miss from Johnson.

In fairness to the winger, he did go down the middle with a recent penalty at Blackburn and scored, so you can understand why he might have been confident about taking that approach again.

As a result, the fact that Cooper is backing Johnson to stay on penalties feels like a sensible move, given the fact he still has the support of his manager should keep his confidence up.

That being said, you do wonder whether Cooper would have taken quite the same approach had Yates not got that equaliser to earn his side a point.