Nottingham Forest getting booted out of Europa League is ‘karma’ for moral injustice

For Nottingham Forest and owner Evangelos Marinakis, what goes around comes around.

At least that’s according to talkSPORT’s Chief Football Correspondent Alex Crook.

The Tricky Trees headed to Villa Park on Thursday night with a one-goal advantage following last week’s 1-0 win over Aston Villa.

Chris Wood’s second-half penalty was enough to separate the two teams at the City Ground in the first leg.

However, Villa restored parity over the semi-final showdown 10 minutes before the break on Thursday night through Ollie Watkins.

And the Villans wrestled control of the final-four showdown as Emi Buendia made no mistake from 12 yards on the hour mark.

John McGinn bagged a quickfire double as Villa won 4-0 on Thursday night to set up a Europa League final meeting with German side Freiburg with a 4-1 aggregate win over Forest.

And Crook believes this is ‘karma’ for Marinakis after Forest secured a spot in the Europa League at Crystal Palace’s expense.

“I think that they got to the semi-finals of a major European competition has saved Marinakis from coming under the pump of his own supporters,” Crook told Sam Matterface and Gabby Agbonlahor on talkSPORT on Friday morning.

“He’s made some bad decisions. Hiring Ange Postecoglou was an absolute disaster.

“Forcing Nuno Espirito Santo out of the football club was probably not the right thing to do, bearing in mind he’d just given them their most successful season in decades, and it was thanks to his management they got into Europe in the first place.

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“But you know what? I’m just going to say it. This feels like karma for Marinakis because they shouldn’t have been in the Europa League at all. They got in there on a technicality.

“It was only because he had the foresight to put his shares into a blind trust, and obviously Palace didn’t do the same thing.

“But morally, it wasn’t right that Palace got bumped down and Forest got bumped up, so I do think what goes around comes around.”

Palace may yet have the last laugh after they secured their spot in the UEFA Conference League final.

The Eagles take on Rayo Vallecano in Leipzig at the end of May in what will be Oliver Glasner’s final game as Palace head coach.

Fans relish Forest elimination

Aside from Crooky, Crystal Palace fans phoned talkSPORT to reflect on what ended up being an extra special night for them.

Aaron the Eagles supporter told the talkSPORT Breakfast Show: “The reason for my call was, I’d just like to be the waiter that serves Marinakis his just desserts, for trying to get us thrown out of the Europa League.

“I would like to be the waiter for his comfy chair when he watches us play in a final while he’s sitting indoors watching EastEnders or Coronation Street.

“Best served cold, eh?”