Huge pride in defeat for Hucknall man Joe Worrall as Nottingham Forest edged out by Liverpool in the FA Cup

But Worrall and his team-mates still had plenty to be proud of in another superb cup display in front of a packed City Ground and millions of TV viewers.

Worrall was named player-of-the-match after another immense performance, particularly in the first half when he made an outstanding tackle to deny Diogo Jota and then a goal-line clearance from Roberto Firminho to keep the score at 0-0.

Speaking to ITV afterwards, Worrall said: "There’s a real buzz around the city, 28,500 came out to see us play and I thought we were fantastic, I’m really, really proud of the lads, we went toe to toe with one of the best teams in the world, so very, very proud.

“What we’ve done season so far, we’ve created belief, optimism, the new manager, the players, the performances, never mind about to today, forget about today, I think we’ve been fantastic the last six months since the manager’s (Steve Cooper) come in."

Forest, who are also chasing a play-off spot in the Championship, went into the game full of confidence having already knocked out Premier League sides Arsenal and Leicester City in previous rounds

However, the Merseyside giants who have already won the EFL Cup this season and are also going toe-to-toe with Manchester City in the Premier League title race and chasing more glory in the Champions League, represented a far sterner test.

And even though they arrived at the City Ground without star names like Mohammed Salah, Sadio Mane and Trent Alexander-Arnold, they still fielded a team packed with world class talent.

And it was one of those star names, Jota, who scored the only goal on 77 minutes – surviving a VAR check for offside – to break Forest hearts, just moments after Philip Zinckernagel had missed a golden chance for the home side.

And VAR was not on Forest’s side again late on when they were denied a penalty after Ryan Yates went down under Liverpool keeper Alisson’s challenge.

Reflecting on the crucial 90 seconds between Zinckernagel’s miss and Jota’s winning goal, Worrall said: “It’s one of those, you’ve got to take those chances and nine times out of 10 in training Phil puts them away.

"We do it all the time, if you watch our highlights, down the right, cross, goal, it’s trademark of ours, we’re really good that.

“And never mind the young players, Tobias Figueiredo alongside me, playing, I think, just his fourth game of the season and he was fantastic.”

Worrall also believes Forest will now take inspiration from their cup run and challenge for the Championship play-offs and promotion to the Premier League.

He said: “We know that, we’re a humble side, we work hard for each other, we show that, we dig in, we’re not scared to play quick attacking football, to play football the right way, to be honest, I think we’ve got honest players as well and the main focus is the league.

"We’d love to have won tonight but it’s not all doom and gloom, we came up against one of the best teams in the world.”