Nuno Espirito Santo insisted his post-match discussion with Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis was no "big deal", following the Reds' 2-2 draw with Leicester City.

While Forest missed the chance to reclaim fifth place in the Premier League, the point was enough to secure European football at the City Ground next season.

Eyebrows were raised at full-time when Forest owner Marinakis entered the pitch to remonstrate with Nuno, whose side dropped two valuable points after Facundo Buonanotte's 81st-minute equaliser.

Marinakis' behaviour was slammed by Gary Neville, who told Sky Sports: "I feel compelled to mention that what the Nottingham Forest owner has just done on the pitch over at the City Ground is absolutely scandalous. 

"If I were Nuno, I would be going and having a really strong word. That is an absolute scandal, he's just qualified them for European competition. 

"Where that club's been, to be remonstrated with on the pitch in front of their own fans is an absolute joke."

The hosts had introduced Taiwo Awoniyi following Leicester's second goal in an effort to snatch a late winner, only for the striker to limp off a few minutes later after colliding with the post, leaving his side to play the remainder of the contest with 10 men.

And Nuno claimed that incident was the bulk of the owner's frustration.

"Football is emotions," he said. "Today, there were more than 30,000 people in the ground with their own emotions.

"After the situation with [Awoniyi], we had one man less. There was a misunderstanding there. It's difficult to control emotions, especially when we had so many expectations on a day like this. It's over.

"You cannot make a big deal out of it. It happens, and will happen again.

"It was frustrating to lose a player we had so much confidence in, and being positive he was going to score immediately. After that, we play with one man less, and that frustrates everybody."

Forest, who are a point behind fifth-place Chelsea, have now won just one of their last six Premier League games, and Morgan Gibbs-White could not hide his frustration with their recent form.

"These past three or four games have just not been good enough," he told Sky Sports. "We played well on the ball today, but we can't concede two goals like that today. It's just frustrating.

"We've secured Europe. That's great for the fans, it's great for the club. But we want more. The fans' and our expectations, five or six games ago, were the Champions League. But we've got to be positive.

"It's been a tough season. Demanding, very demanding, especially putting ourselves in the situations we have. We can't make excuses, we have to look at ourselves in the mirror. The fans deserved way more today.

"None of us have been in this situation before. We handled it well at first, but as it's started to come away from us, we haven't handled it so well."

According to Opta's supercomputer, Forest are now most likely to finish seventh, which would not be enough to see them qualify for the Champions League.

Indeed, the probability of Forest sealing a top-five finish is now just 17.8%.

Meanwhile, Leicester were rewarded for refusing to give up after losing their initial lead through Conor Coady's first Premier League goal since October 2022.

And despite their inevitable relegation being confirmed in recent weeks, Ruud van Nistelrooy paid tribute to the efforts of his players.

"I started to speak about changing the narrative before the Brighton game [on April 12]," he said. "We were still fighting and had a slight chance to stay in the league, but we started a different approach about shaping the future and finishing the season as high as possible.

"Since then, we've played five and except for the Wolves [game], we've been at it. We've shown great commitment and a willingness to improve, to give the supporters some positivity, to break cycles, to shape the future with young players.

"I felt it was an important moment in the season, with relegation almost obvious, to start shaping the future. As a manager, I'm responsible for that, and it continues for two more games.

"I can't thank the players enough that they're with me in this and that it's working, that it gives them performances and results."

Leicester are unbeaten in successive Premier League games (W1 D1) for the first time since December, while they have scored six goals in their last five league games, as many as in their prior 17 matches in the competition combined.