Nottingham Forest will take on Cardiff City tonight without potentially three of their most influential players this season as Lewis Grabban, Sammy Ameobi, Samba Sow and new signing Nuno da Costa are all set to miss out on the trip to Wales.

Cardiff has infamously been a tough place to go for Forest over the years with the Reds last away win over the Bluebirds coming in 2010 when Lewis McGugan and Dexter Blackstock helped Billy Davies’s men to 2-0 victory.

The Welsh side have won their last five matches home and away against the Reds and are ten unbeaten verses Forest last losing at the City Ground in October 2012 when Forest that day won 3-1.

Recent form has been impressive too as Cardiff are unbeaten on their own patch since November with Manager Neil Harris having lost just three of his 22 matches in charge.

The Bluebirds did get beat in their last outing at Stoke however but prior to that went eleven matches without losing in normal time despite being knocked out in the FA Cup on penalties against Reading.

Cardiff are currently tenth but just six points behind Forest with Neil Harris knowing a win could close that gap to three it will be very much down to the Reds mentality to pick themselves up and stay in the promotion push after a disappointing 0-0 against QPR at the weekend.

Coach Sabri Lamouchi knows he has a tough encounter ahead but Forest have usually come away from home on these types of occasion and done themselves proud, tactically the Frenchman is likely to make his side hard to beat as Forest will look to hit the homeside on the break.

Lamouchi who could give starts to the likes of Mighten, Carvalho or Walker stated “It will be a very tough game. Against Cardiff with the same manager, at home it was a difficult game with a lot of chances but we lost.”

“They were very compact, very aggressive and very strong so it will be similar, probably tougher.”

“They play at home so they need to do something different from the game here, we will see. I know what kind of game we will expect but we need to play the way that we know.”

*Main image @NFFC top scorer Lewis Grabban will potentially miss the trip to Wales.