Dyche had made seven changes from Saturday’s 0-0 Premier League draw against leaders Arsenal. The last time he altered the side so drastically was at Wrexham in the FA Cup.
After exiting the competition that night, the Forest boss was highly critical of the players who had come into the team but he more forgiving on this occasion.
“There’s effort there but the cutting edge… we want more of that,” he added.
“We are in a weird situation where I have to protect certain players. We know the Premier League is massively important but we wanted to do well in this competition and we still do.
“It’s a fine line, it’s a juggling act. On one hand you want to protect some players and give everyone a chance.”
Yates felt that Forest were slightly hard done by to lose and that the visitors “controlled the most part of the game”.
“We are frustrated because I think we did enough to win the game,” he told TNT Sports.
“We’ve missed an opportunity. Not that we were terrible but we can definitely do better. We have to move on quickly.”
Former Manchester City defender Joleon Lescott saw it slightly differently and highlighted the added blow of Elliot Anderson’s late sending off.
“The perfect way to sum it up is a mess,” he told TNT Sports. “Collectively it wasn’t good enough.
“To top it off and lose someone of the stature of Anderson when you have a massive game next week is devastating.
“You often look at games and wonder if there are any positives. I don’t think there are any tonight.
“A terrible night, terrible performance on what should have been a marvellous evening.”
Anderson will miss next week’s final group game and Forest will hope the ban is not extended to include the likely play-off in February.
Those extra games could be a problem for Forest at such a busy stage of the season as they chase Premier League survival – and going into them without their star midfielder would stretch the squad even further.
Ultimately, Forest will feel it is a situation they could have avoided.
“You might come away with a draw, but you shouldn’t really lose that game,” Dyche said.
But in “one minute of madness”, lose it they did.