Defender Michael Dawson believes Nottingham Forest head coach Sabri Lamouchi has put together a squad capable of challenging for promotion.
But he insists the players will not get carried away by a start to the season which saw them go on a seven-match unbeaten run before the international break.
Dawson says everyone at the City Ground is in good spirits as they find themselves sitting ninth in the Championship table, a point off the top six, and in the third round of the Carabao Cup.
Their opening day defeat to West Bromwich Albion remains their only loss so far.
However, he says Lamouchi has made it clear they cannot lose focus when the action resumes with a trip to Swansea City in little more than a week’s time.
“You’re always a lot more comfortable when you’re winning games,” Dawson said.
“The manager’s building a squad together to challenge for promotion, which is what everyone in this city wants, not just the football club.
“We all know the Premier League is what it’s about.
“We’re focused day by day.
“When he (Lamouchi) came in during pre-season, we were focused on West Brom, then you move on to the next one.
“We’re through August now, so we’ll start looking at September. You can’t look too far ahead because things can soon start going wrong.
“You win some and you lose some.
“People can get carried away with themselves.
“You’ve got to keep your feet on the ground. When you win, you take it and enjoy it. When you lose, you get back to the drawing board.
“It’s a long season. If you keep doing the majority of things right, you’ll win more games than you lose.”
The Reds have notched up nine points from their six league games - a tally Dawson describes as “acceptable”.
All of the teams they have faced currently sit above them in the table, but Lamouchi’s men have still clinched some impressive results, such as a 2-1 win at recently-relegated Fulham and coming from behind to draw 1-1 at Leeds United.
“It’s acceptable,” Dawson said of their points tally. “Of course we would like more; you always want more.
“We would like to win every game. But we’ve been to some tough places and played teams who I believe will be in the top six. That’s where we want to be.
“We want to get promotion. We’re like everyone else. We’re like Preston, we’re like Leeds and West Brom.
“But there’s a lot of football still to play and we’ll just keep going.”
After a few days off, the Forest squad have returned to work, with
“He’ll always work hard in training,” Dawson added. “He was like that from the day he walked through the door - getting on the pitch, showing what he wants, patterns of play, possession.
“You can see we’ve got a different way of playing to what we did last year.
“Everyone’s got to be comfortable in possession and be able to keep it. If you do that, you’ll make the other team run a lot more.”
