Head coach Sabri Lamouchi says he saw enough from his Nottingham Forest players to convince him they can bounce back from an opening day defeat.
The Reds were toppled 2-1 by West Bromwich Albion on Saturday in Lamouchi’s first match in charge, having taken an early lead through Matty Cash.
Mistakes from goalkeeper Arijanet Muric proved costly as Kyle Edwards and Matt Phillips clinched the three points for the visitors with goals in the first half.
It was not the way Forest would have wanted to start a season in which they hope to be challenging for promotion.
And Lamouchi says the squad will put in the work this week in a bid to put things right
“Of course it’s a bad start,” said the Frenchman. “It’s not the best way to start the league, but I saw positive things from my players.
“I can’t say anything bad against my players because they tried their best.
“For the moment, we just need to focus on the work we need to do. We need to know exactly what we need to do for the future, because we can’t accept this result.
“We didn’t deserve this defeat.
“The team played a fantastic 15 minutes but it was not enough. We needed to be more clever to win the game.”
Lamouchi also explained his decision to substitute reigning Reds Player of the Year Joe Lolley in the second half.
The winger had a quiet afternoon by his own very high standards, but the Forest boss expects him to quickly get back to being his usual influential self and play a key role in the games ahead.
“We needed to change something,” Lamouchi said. “Maybe it was my mistake, but Lolley was a little bit down (in performance level).
“Lolley has a lot of quality; maybe it was a little bit different on Saturday, but for the next game against Leeds and all the others, he will improve.
“It’s not about a single player. We need to play as a team. We need to suffer altogether, we need to win altogether and accept mistakes altogether.
“It’s not you or me or somebody else.
“On Saturday we lost, but we need to come back this week and prepare for the next one, because the next one will be tougher than this one.”
