Head coach Steve Cooper thanked his Nottingham Forest players for sticking to the plan as they ended their winless run by beating Brighton and Hove Albion.
The Reds came from behind to halt a streak of 11 games without a victory, claiming a huge 3-1 result at the City Ground. A Pascal Gross own goal - from Renan Lodi’s cross-shot - cancelled out Facundo Buonanotte’s opener, then Danilo and a Morgan Gibbs-White secured the points in the second half.
The win lifted Forest out of the relegation zone with five matches to play. But while Cooper played down climbing out of the bottom three, he hailed his team’s effort.
READ MORE: How the Reds rated against Brighton
READ MORE: How the action unfolded at the City Ground
“I don’t even know what the other results were tonight. I just think we’ve got to look after ourselves,” said the Welshman.
“Like everybody, if you get the results that you need then things will take care of themselves with league positions. We managed to get the result tonight. I don’t know what that looks like league position wise, but it obviously won’t have done us any harm.
“But let’s try to improve it again on Saturday (at Brentford). That’s got to be the only thing we’re thinking about now.
“I’m delighted with the result. I’ve got loads of gratitude to the players for trusting the plan we put in place.
“Respect to Brighton for the way they play, the season they are having and the players they have, so we knew the game was going to look as it looked. We planned for that, in terms of them having the ball and us getting the attacks we did.
“Keylor (Navas) has made a brilliant save after the (Brennan Johnson) penalty miss and Brighton have got in some dangerous areas, but I think we created the real chances in the game. We were never going to have a competition of possession with them, because that wouldn’t have been the right plan.
“I asked the players to continue at half-time, not to get frustrated - because there are some parts of the game they wouldn’t have enjoyed greatly. But I said they would get the rewards.”
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