Nottingham Forest's dreams of Champions League glory were dealt a major blow after a 2-0 defeat to Brentford at the City Ground.
Nuno Espirito Santo's side looked like promising contenders for Europe's most prestigious club competition after a successful season, and a win could have lifted them to third place in the Premier League.
However, they could not withstand the pressure as goals from Kevin Schade and Yoane Wissa dealt them a crushing defeat that left them in sixth position.
Just four days after their FA Cup semi-final defeat to Manchester City, it is clear that Forest's season is heading for a downturn at the worst possible time as they suffer a third league defeat in four games.
The battle for the top five is likely to be full of surprises with four games remaining, but Forest have already lost control of their destiny on what could prove to be a fateful night.
Brentford are unbeaten for four games in a row and still have European ambitions, sitting just two points off eighth place, which could be enough to secure a place in the Europa Conference League.
Although Forest were coming off a heavy defeat at Wembley on Sunday, they were up against a team who had not played for 12 days and that was evident in Brentford's energetic start.
The Bees had a chance to open the scoring when Sepp van den Bergh pulled off an offside trap from a free-kick but his header was too close to Mats Sels, who deflected it to safety.
Despite a good start, they were lucky to have 11 men on the pitch after 21 minutes as Keane Lewis-Potter escaped a sending-off after arguing for a second yellow card for a tackle on Ole Aine.
That inspired Forest and forced Brentford to retreat, threatening dangerous attacks into the box, while Mark Flecken kept out Elliot Anderson's weak effort.
But disaster struck just before half-time when the Bees took the lead.
Aina failed to properly control Nathan Collins' long pass down the middle, allowing the ball to bounce and end up in the hands of Schade, who sent it into the goal.
Forest made changes at half-time and in the pouring rain the Reds charged forward in search of an equaliser.
Anthony Elanga came closest all evening when he ran on Morgan Gibbs-White's ball and cut inside, but Flekken was up to the task of denying his low shot.
The hosts continued to attack and Chris Wood headed just wide.
But Forest suffered defeat in the 70th minute when they were thwarted by another long pass.
The ball bounced back from Flekken's shot, and Vissa evaded Nikola Milenkovic and gracefully beat Sels.
The home side appeared to be unable to get back into the game as their Champions League hopes were seriously damaged.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
