Nuno Espirito Santo hits out at Premier League schedule with Nottingham Forest boss concerned players will be distracted by Newcastle Chelsea clash as Champions League race heats up

Nuno Espirito Santo fears the clash between Newcastle and Chelsea on Sunday will distract his Nottingham Forest stars from their task of beating Leicester.

Forest, Newcastle and Chelsea are in the hunt for a place in next season’s Champions League and the clash at St James’ Park could have a huge bearing on Forest’s hopes.

The 12pm kick-off time means that match will finish not long before Forest start against already-relegated Leicester at 2.15pm and Nuno acknowledged the outcome will influence his team’s mood and that of the Forest supporters.

He said: ‘The closing stages of their game will coincide with our pre-match warm-up. No matter what you say, the first thing the players will do when they return from the warm-up is try to find out what happened.

‘They’ll be saying ‘What was the score?’ And it won’t be only the players and staff. It will be nearly 30,000 people at the stadium who will be stuck to their phones. It’s a really tiny gap between the end of the Newcastle-Chelsea game and the start of ours.

Forest, Newcastle and Chelsea are in the hunt for a place in next season’s Champions League 

Chelsea and Newcastle are level on points as they vye with Forest for Champions League spots

‘You can say ‘OK, it doesn’t matter’ but it does. With phones and TVs, it is impossible to keep the information from the players, so it is better for them to know. We can’t control it.’

The scheduling of matches for television is a constant frustration for managers, even the Premier League’s worldwide broadcast deals provide the clubs with huge spending power.

Nuno added: ‘Since I arrived in the UK (in 2017) we have been talking about this issue – not only me, but all the managers. But we are ignored.’