Ryan Mason on Forest in the League Cup: “I’ll always have that memory...”

“Time flies!” smiled Ryan Mason as he looked back on his breakthrough moment at the club.

Incredibly now more than eight years ago, it only seems like five minutes since the Academy graduate stepped off the bench to fire home a spectacular equaliser and set us on the way to a 3-1 victory over Nottingham Forest in the third round of the League Cup at White Hart Lane back in September of 2014.

It was, of course, the launchpad for the midfielder’s top-flight career. Off the back of that impactful appearance, he made his Premier League debut in the north London derby three days later and never looked back, quickly establishing himself as a regular and important starter in Mauricio Pochettino’s early team that reached the League Cup Final in 2015 before going on to help us secure a return to Champions League football the following year.

Not bad for someone who had played 90 minutes for the Under-21s away to Sunderland 48 hours beforehand!

Now an integral member of Antonio Conte’s coaching staff, Ryan couldn’t help but afford himself a moment to reminisce at Hotspur Way on Tuesday, as our preparations continued for another cup meeting with Forest – this time at the City Ground – at the very same stage of the competition as in 2014.

“My memories of that night are obviously very fond ones,” said the 31-year-old. “I spoke at the time about how I’d waited a long time for that sort of moment and you saw in the celebrations after the goal the emotion, the passion and what it meant to me, because it was a long road to that point.

“Luckily for me, I kicked on from there and it was the start of a successful spell playing for the first team. I’d played 90 minutes away on the Monday night for the Under-21s, didn’t get back until 4.30 in the morning, I trained Tuesday, played Wednesday, trained Thursday, trained Friday and then played the north London derby on the Saturday.

“I think what a lot of people don’t see is the work you put in to get to that point. That season, I might have played almost 40 games in the end, so I was ready. I’d put in all the work, I’d waited for that opportunity and I took it, then furthermore I took it against Arsenal. I was starting a lot of games in the Premier League that season, so that was a very big moment for me and Forest is a club that whenever we compete against them, I’ll always have that memory in the back of my head.”

Trailing 1-0 just after the hour mark to Jorge Grant’s goal on a night where the away end was full of green jumpers as Forest fans marked the 10th anniversary of the passing of their legendary former manager Brian Clough, Ryan and Harry Kane – who didn’t become a first team regular until later that season – got the green light to go on and rescue the tie for us. When Mase sent an explosive shot into the net from the edge of the area to get us back on terms, there was no containing his celebration as he sped towards the north-east corner of our famous old ground and leapt high into the air in delight.

“My family used to sit in that corner,” he recalled. “I think a lot of players, when they scored, you’d see them run over to that corner because they had family members up there, so it meant a hell of a lot to me and still does. Me and Harry came on, we were 1-0 down, I scored, then I think (Roberto) Soldado scored from Andros Townsend’s shot and then Harry wrapped it up late on, so it was a positive night for us.”

Here's hoping for more of the same, then, as we go to Forest on Wednesday night (7.45pm UK) in what will be our second visit to the City Ground this season, following August’s 2-0 triumph in the Premier League.

“We want to compete in every single competition and in every game we play, we want to be as competitive as we can,” said Ryan, looking ahead to the match. “Last year we fell short in this competition and got knocked out in the semi-finals but we’re not naive, we know this is going to be a difficult game, the crowd will be up for it, it’ll be a very hostile atmosphere like all cup games are, but we have to go there with the right mentality, the right mindset, hopefully get a positive result and progress through to the next round.”