It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t, as Steve Cooper again conceded afterwards, “exactly what” he wants his team to be. But it was another small step.
And right now, small steps are important ones for Nottingham Forest. This one lifted them off the foot of the table - albeit having played a game more than Leicester City, who are in action on Thursday night.
There will come a time when the Reds need to take bigger strides; when they need to be braver and more adventurous going forward. But to get to that point, they had to make themselves harder to beat and more defensively sound.
