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Chris Wood returns to Nottingham Forest from New Zealand without playing a single minute for his country.

Wood injured his thigh in the loss to Tottenham earlier this month and missed the loss to Newcastle United. However, he still traveled to his homeland for two friendlies against China. Wood did not feature in Thursday’s goalless draw in Auckland and has been ruled unfit for the rematch in Wellington on Sunday. As a result, the 31-year-old was sent back to Nottingham for further evaluation by Forest’s medical team.

New Zealand interim manager Darren Bazeley explained: “We have been monitoring Chris since he arrived but he did not travel with the team yesterday, staying in Auckland for a consultation.

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“Between the two medical departments, we believe it is in the best interest of Chris to return home, return to his club and have the injury monitored and assessed by his own club.

“Chris is not a player you take chances with. He came with every intention of playing. You know Chris, he wants to play every game.

“We trained, but it wasn’t quite right, so we followed the advice and the best thing for Chris now is to come back and make sure he’s in a good place when he gets home.”

New Zealand are desperate to have their all-time leading scorer available again, having failed to score in their last five games. The All White last scored in a World Cup qualifier against the Solomon Islands a year ago.

“He’s a pretty good player,” he added. “He’s a goal-scoring Premier League striker and he’s our captain, so yeah, he’s a knockout, but he’s football, you take him on.”

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