Lewis Grabban came off the bench to salvage a 1-1 draw against Sheffield United, on a night where Nottingham Forest again were left fuming at refereeing decisions.
Brennan Johnson argued he was felled by Chris Basham in the penalty area in the second half. But the Reds youngster was instead booked for diving by Leigh Doughty, and the Blades opened the scoring soon after.
Morgan Gibbs-White put the visitors in front, leaving Steve Cooper’s side having to come from behind.
They did just that in the 83rd minute, when substitute Grabban slotted home from a Johnson cross.
Forest have now picked up 15 points from Cooper’s eight games in charge. Here’s what the head coach had to say at the final whistle.
Was a draw a fair result?
“Yeah. There were some moments which could have gone our way, and a bit of luck which we didn’t quite get. But it was a tough game.
“Sheffield United are a good team, who are highly resourced and have a lot of players who have applied themselves well in the Premier League.
“We knew it was going to be a tough game because a lot of resource has gone into that team, and you could see the calibre of player they had.
“They had too much of the ball in the first half, but never really threatened. They weren't peppering the goal, in fact they weren’t peppering the box. We were in control tactically.
“I like games like that, where you have to think about tactics and some of the oppositional play.
“I thought we did better with the ball in the second half.
“There was an interesting moment down there, again (the Johnson incident).
“They scored a good goal, then we scored a good goal. They were similar sort of moves, getting down the sides with good crosses.
“And then I thought if any team was going to win it, I thought it was going to be us, because we looked fitter, stronger and more confident in the end.
“They were good in the first half, though. It was two good teams having a go at each other.”
Should you have taken one of your chances before going behind?
“Even in the first half, when they had more of the ball, we still got in good positions.
“I said to the lads, we need to be more clinical and more decisive with our final actions. A couple of decision-making I didn’t quite like - we needed to be better with it, really, because we did get into positions where we wanted to be.
“I did fancy us to score. I always fancy us to score, because we’ve got good players. Fortunately we managed to get one.”
Does it show the character you have in the side to come from behind again?
“We showed good character all through the game.
“We showed good character to react from the last game (at QPR), because it was a hard one to get over when you get back on the bus and see some of the things on the TV.
“It was a tough game to play in. There was THAT moment. But we went 1-0 down and kept going.”
That moment with Brennan… He seemed furious about it?
“He got booked for diving as well. Then there was a moment right at the end where one of their boys went over and got treatment for cramp.
“And I got booked as well. I’ve never been booked in my life! I don’t know what it was for.
“I’m not going to get into the decision and get into trouble. But what I will say is we are going to stand up and be counted here as a football club.
“We are doing everything we can to connect with the supporters, to do what we’re doing on the pitch, where people can be proud of what they’re seeing. We know we’ve got work to do, and we know we’ve got to be in a better place. But we are trying.
“And when things are going to go against us, and people want to be unfair with us, we aren’t going to accept it.
“I’m not going to pick it up on-script with the media. But for sure, we’ll be doing it off-script, official things.
“We ain’t standing for it.”
What did you make of Jack Colback at left-back?
“He did a good job. He’s played left-back in his career, so that part of being a wing-back wasn’t too new to him.
“You then think about what you don’t get with not having Max, which we were quite open talking to the team about, and Jack accepted - about penetration down that side. We talked about what we wanted it to be from other players.
“Some bits were good. Some bits didn’t go quite as we’d like, and we tried to get Brennan over there to mix it up a little bit.
“We knew it was coming, Max not being available.
“I made the decision that I wanted the players on the pitch who were playing well, in good form, had good momentum and were used to playing minutes. That was the rationale.”
