The Watford manager, Slavisa Jokanovic, is trying to keep his calm as the big finish to an enthralling Championship season reaches its peak.
Having seen what the rest of the congested top eight did on Tuesday, Watford needed to win by three goals to take themselves into second place, above Norwich, with the smell of automatic promotion in their nostrils.
They did not quite make it, although they are level on points, with three games left to play beginning with Birmingham City at Vicarage Road on Saturday.
Watford, with only one defeat in their last 11 games, do look equipped to make the Premier League and a prize estimated at £100m.
“It is a good fight for everyone who is watching and I am keeping calm and trying to enjoy it,” Jokanovic said. “I am not thinking about second place, the play-offs or what our promotion rivals do.
“This was a difficult game for us at Nottingham Forest, the history of the club, this historic stadium, and they pushed us hard. But if we are not motivated now we will never be. My players are motivated and so am I for what is to come.”
Odion Ighalo, with his 20th goal of the season, and Matthew Connolly set it up for Watford but then it got tricky. Forest were reduced to 10 men when Kelvin Wilson was sent off with 31 minutes to go for kicking out at Ighalo but it did not stop them worrying Watford.
Gary Gardner scored with a superb free-kick and Watford had to deal with some pressure when they might have judged the game to have been won. They had to wait until the 87th minute when Karl Darlow beat away Adlène Guedioura’s 30-yard drive and it fell to Almen Abdi to tuck away to secure victory.
Forest were on top both before and immediately after Ighalo’s goal but it did not matter, Watford had drawn first blood. Ikechi Anya took a corner that the centre-half Craig Cathcart headed on for Ighalo to head downward and in, from about six yards, at the far post.
It was the kind of goal Forest would have been drilled not to concede, something their manager, Dougie Freedman, will work on. He revealed after the game he has signed a new two-year deal.
Watford were eight goals short of their club record of 92 in a season going into this game, so Forest could not say they had not been warned. And they tried to do something about it.
The Watford goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes had already made a good save with his legs from Chris Burke after two minutes and, after Ighalo’s goal, he made two more from Michail Antonio and Ben Osborn.
Tit for tat, shot for shot, it continued as Abdi missed a great chance for a second Watford goal in the 23rd minute when, free through the middle of Forest’s defence, he put his shot wide.
Gomes made his fourth outstanding save in the 39th minute from Eric Lichaj’s crunching volley but then Forest were picked off again four minutes before half-time.
Connolly made the goal and scored it. He got hold of the ball, ran virtually the length of the field and fed Ighalo. Darlow saved at Ighalo’s feet but, when the ball ran free, Connolly was there to tap in for his first goal in two years.
