Nottingham Forest secured a Europa League quarter-final place with a penalty shootout win over Danish side Midtjylland following a dramatic last-16 tie.

Cho Gue-Sung and Aral Simsir both struck the same post for Midtjylland in the shootout before Edward Chilufya slipped and also missed, while Morgan Gibbs-White, Ibrahim Sangare and Neco Williams all scored from the spot to send Forest through.

Vitor Pereira's side now face a quarter-final against Porto next month as they put their Premier League struggles behind them to continue their European quest.

Forest midfielder Ryan Yates arrowed a low strike from 20 yards into the corner to put his side ahead in the tie, after Nicolas Dominguez had headed the visitors in front on the night and level on aggregate before half-time.

Then Midtjylland defender Martin Erlic forced extra time by pulling one back for the hosts when he found the net from inside the area.

But Forest would not be denied and got through as they came back from a first-leg deficit.

Forest travelled to Denmark trailing to Cho's goal at the City Ground last week and started with clear intent to get back into the last-16 tie.

Pereira may have made nine changes from Sunday's goalless draw with Fulham, as he obviously has Sunday's huge match with relegation rivals Tottenham in mind, but they dominated the first half with 11 attempts to Midtjylland one on goal.

Yates hit the crossbar after a superb pass from James McAtee before former Bournemouth midfielder Philip Billing cleared off the line after the ball pinged around in the area following a corner.

Dominguez and Nicola Milenkovic were the only players to keep their place and combined for the opener on the night and the equaliser in the tie.

Dilane Bakwa put a deep cross into the area five minutes before the half-time break and Milenkovic rose to knock it back to Dominguez, who found the net as he stretched to deliver a looping header over Midtjylland goalkeeper Elias Olafsson.

Yates then fired home seven minutes after the restart to put Forest ahead in the tie but their joy was ended when Erlic struck.

It was Cho's header which was blocked by Morato with 20 minutes to go but it fell kindly to defender Erlic and he lashed it past Stefan Ortega in the Forest goal which would eventually force extra time.

Forest captain Yates thought he had won it late on in the added 30 minutes but his fine header was ruled out by the assistant referee for offside, which was confirmed by a VAR check.

This was just Forest's second win under Pereira - the other being against Fenerbahce in the last round of this competition. They won both the game on the night and the tie after the penalty shootout, having previously gone six games without a victory under the manager who replaced Sean Dyche in February.

It was clear with Pereira's team selection that Sunday's match with Tottenham and Premier League safety is the priority for the two-time European Cup winners.

Pereira opted to bring on three of those who will surely start on Sunday in Gibbs-White, Williams and Murillo just after the hour mark.

He will have hoped that would have been to see the game out as, at that time, Forest were going through following the goals from Dominguez and Yates.

But Erlic's strike brought Midtjylland level which meant those three would play a lot more minutes than maybe Pereira would have liked given the significance of Sunday's game with Spurs, who they are just a point behind in the battle to stay up.

It also meant that Elliot Anderson had to be introduced in the 75th minute and the England midfielder was not shy in putting himself about in what was a physical game, with German referee Felix Zwayer allowing plenty of challenges to go unpunished.

Anderson's determination was a sign that Forest were still desperate to progress here as he continually threw himself into tackles and tried to force them forward.

It would need penalties to progress but the last time Forest came into a second leg trailing in a continental competition and eventually got through to the next round was against Berliner FC Dynamo during the 1979-80 European Cup.

They went all the way that year to win the competition and, after tonight, they can still go on and lift the Europa League trophy this season.