It appears that Nottingham Forest’s Cheikhou Kouyaté decided that he would spend the international break training with his national team regardless of whether or not he was called up by Aliou Cissé.
The Tricky Trees midfielder, who arrived at City Ground on a free transfer in the summer, has made 13 appearances in all competitions under Steve Cooper this season, but has recently been sidelined with a hamstring injury.
He was left out of the initial group called up by Cissé on March 17th, but journalist Saikou Seydi took to Twitter to reveal the Nottingham Forest man was among those taking part in the squad’s first training session of the international break.
Including a picture of the players on the training pitch, he states that ‘we can note the presence of Cheikhou Kouyaté’, despite him not being called up.
14 joueurs présents à la première séance d’entraînement des lions A. On note la présence de Cheikhou KOUYATÉ. Le milieu de terrain de Nottingham Forest n’était pas retenu sur la liste de Cissé. #TeamSenegal pic.twitter.com/jrUw5oWhVs
— SAIKOU SEYDI (@Saikouseydi1) March 20, 2023
Our best guess here is that Kouyaté travelled to be assessed by the Senegal national team doctors, and then simply headed out on the training pitch to undergo a few recovery exercises.
Whether this was approved by Nottingham Forest isn’t said, but we can’t see the 33-year-old defensive midfielder going rogue just for the sake of being with his compatriots.
