Nottingham Forest have had their fair share of injury problems over the Premier League season and now a new update has emerged on another setback ahead of their return to action later this month.

What's the latest?

Forest boss Steve Cooper has revealed a concerning update on Cheikhou Kouyate's recovery timeline after suffering a hamstring injury at the World Cup, which led to the midfielder needing surgery.

Unfortunately it doesn't look good for Cooper, who revealed to NottinghamshireLive:

"That’s going to rule him out now for 10 to 12 weeks. It’s a challenge for him that he’s got to embrace and give his best to.

"We’ll miss him, for sure - on the pitch and, equally, off the pitch, because of the character and the personality that he is. It’s slightly unfortunate about how it all evolved with the injury, but we don’t really want to get into that. It’s happened now, so we all have to commit - including Cheik - to get him back as quickly as possible."

It's bad news for Cooper

There is no doubt that it is bad news for the manager that Kouyate will be unavailable for the next few months as the Welshman has a huge challenge ahead of him to secure safety in the Premier League over the second half of the campaign.

Forest are currently 18th in the top flight, spending the majority of their promotion season inside the relegation zone so far, however, the run of form displayed ahead of the World Cup break will have given Cooper hope that his team can finally start competing.

Over their last five league outings, Forest collected points from four of their fixtures, leaving them just one point shy of climbing out of the bottom three ahead of their clash with Manchester United on Boxing Day.

Losing the experience and consistency Kouyate has been offering the Tricky Trees in the centre of the pitch will be a big blow for Forest, especially when you consider his output so far.

With a Sofascore match rating of 6.78, he is the seventh-best player in the squad so far and indeed their joint-best midfielder alongside Ryan Yates when compared to that metric.

That comes courtesy of some productive displays over 12 appearances, with the 32-year-old having scored one goal, created one big chance and completed a whopping 84% of his dribbles.

Furthermore, he has averaged 1.8 tackles - the best of any midfielder in the squad - 1.6 clearances and 3.9 duels won per game.

With that being said, the absence of Kouyate will be a big loss for Cooper but he will now need to rely on his other midfielders to deliver crucial points in the Premier League over the upcoming fixtures.