Nottingham Forest must quickly put the frustration of Friday night’s last-minute postponement behind them.
The decision to call off the Reds’ clash with Bournemouth was made barely four hours before the scheduled 7.45pm kick-off, with Steve Cooper’s side having travelled down the previous day.
But the Forest head coach has warned there cannot be any lingering disappointment from their fruitless journey, with full focus needed, if his team are to get back to winning ways against Preston North End on Tuesday night.
“It hasn’t really changed anything, in terms of preparation,” said Cooper.
“If we’d played Friday, then you might have got injuries or fatigue or whatever else that can be a consequence of playing a game. But that hasn’t happened.
“We changed the schedule slightly, because you get more opportunity to do some training. And we changed the training programme, because players were not in recovery mode.
“You just adapt to all of that as it comes.
“Whether or not we’d played on Friday, and however the game would have gone, we’d still have to go to Preston for the next game.
“That’s just the nature of the Championship - putting one game to bed and getting ready for the next one.
“We’re not looking back at all. Our focus is on trying to get the right plan and preparation done for Preston; hopefully doing whatever it takes to win the game.”
Cooper went to watch the Lilywhites on Saturday as they lost 3-2 at home to struggling Reading - and is well aware of the challenge they will pose.
“This will be a tough game,” he said. “I went to watch them at the weekend, against Reading. They didn’t quite get the result they wanted.
“We have to be ready for this game.
“They haven’t lost many games of late. The new manager is in place now, Ryan Lowe, and you can see the team is playing a certain way.
“They have a lot of experienced and good Championship players.
“It’s a game that we 100 percent have to be ready for.
“I’ve watched a lot of their games recently, because we do a lot of opposition analysis.
“They play in a clear way. They’ve got a lot of strength throughout the team and players who have been at Preston a while, who have good connections with the club.
“They’ve got some players at the top end who can be effective as well.
“And also, the context of the game is, we’re away from home - that always proves a challenge, and we have to deal with that.
“Preston can be a tough game on any given day, but away from home, in midweek, we have to be 100 percent ready for it - with the ball, without the ball and certainly with our mentality.”
The midweek clash is a chance, too, for the Reds to keep the pressure on at the top end of the Championship table.
They are currently in ninth spot, three points below sixth-placed Sheffield United.
“We’re always striving to improve, we’re always striving to get better, we’re always striving to climb up the league and accumulate points,” said the Welshman.
“That doesn’t change until you really get to the countdown area, where you really know where it’s going.
“You’ve really got to focus on yourself, focus on winning your own games and not worry too much about what’s going on elsewhere.
“The reality is, if you pick up enough points and win enough games, you tend to end up in the position you want to. That has to be our focus - it’s the only thing we’re in control of.
“We’re not in control of any other game or any other team, only ourselves, our performances and our results.”
