Nuno on referees, Everton return and 'working together'

Nottingham Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo believes refereeing standards have improved, ahead of their first trip to Everton since last season's controversy.

Forest return to Goodison Park on Sunday having been fined £750,000 by the Football Association for an "attack on the integrity of a match official on an unparalleled scale" following a social media post after a 2-0 defeat in April.

Forest claimed video assistant referee (VAR) Stuart Attwell was a fan of Luton Town, who were also battling relegation at the time, when they complained on X about three penalty decisions that went against them in the loss on 21 April.

They were ultimately punished in October, but Nuno feels standards have risen from officials now.

"This is what is normal. This is normal, what happened before was not normal," he said. "We are seeing a season of improvement. We are delighted because what we want is to play the game and ignore everything else.

"For everybody. I hope it continues because us coaches, we just want to play football."

In the aftermath of the loss at Everton, Nuno was given a suspended one-match touchline ban and fined £40,000 for his comments - with the suspension triggered after he was charged with misconduct following his reaction to Morgan Gibbs-White's red card at Brighton in September.

Mark Clattenburg also left his position as Forest's referee analyst in the wake of the charge, having been given a formal warning himself after a newspaper column.

It was part of a chaotic end to the season which saw Forest stay up thanks to a final day win at Burnley.

It was a moment Nuno feels was a moment of realisation of how to find success for a team that is five points clear of fifth-placed Newcastle in the Premier League.

"There was a moment, the final game [of last season] at Burnley, we had a nice chat. We had a moment," he said following Thursday's win over Tottenham.

"That day we realised it was mission accomplished, the first job we had to do we did it and we did it in a way under the circumstances we did. We did it without conflict.

"I told them they did it because they are a nice group of people. Then we have built on all the aspects but first the bond. That is the priority.

"My belief is that this is the priority for everything, if you don't work together, how can you build something?"