Nottingham Forest: Britt Assombalonga set to return from career-threatening injury

Nottingham Forest striker Britt Assombalonga says he refused to accept the his knee injury was career-threatening after first being told.

Assombalonga is set to make his first-team return following a 14-month layoff against Blackburn at home on Tuesday.

The 23-year-old admits he initially failed to comprehend its severity.

"I don't even know if I heard it properly until my dad told me again later in the day because I was under the gas," he told BBC Radio Nottingham.

"I always had faith that I would come back. And now I'm here.

"It's a great feeling for me to be around it. It is a blessing. Even if I'm just sitting on the bench, it will be a great feeling for me.

"Fourteen months is a long time. Just looking back it, it has been very long."

Assombalonga, who joined from Peterborough United for £5.5m in August 2014, had scored 15 goals in 27 Championship starts for the Reds when he dislocated his knee taking a shot against Wigan in February 2015.

Despite missing more than three months of the season, he finished as Forest's top scorer in the league last term.

Nottingham Forest have scored just 36 goals in the Championship this season - 26 fewer than they had managed at the same stage last campaign - with only MK Dons scoring fewer goals in the Football League so far in 2015-16.

"I've hated not playing and watching from the sideline," Assombalonga said.

"It's been hard and I would have loved to be in the team this season, but I had to wait on the sidelines.

"I still have more work to do to make sure that I'm right and 100% going into next season.

"I won't be straight in, there will be a few minutes here and there and I won't play 90 minutes this season. I'm just building myself up for pre-season."

Britt Assombalonga scored against Wigan before later going down with a serious knee injury