Head coach Steve Cooper has warned his players there can be no room for complacency after Nottingham Forest climbed to 13th in the Premier League table.
The Reds are five points above the relegation zone after Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Leicester City, with half of the season gone. But Cooper wants his side to be “obsessed” with improving.
Beating the Foxes, courtesy of a Brennan Johnson brace, made it eight games unbeaten in all competitions at the City Ground. For the Forest manager, however, the only thing on his mind is what comes next.
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"When people say things like that, I just think about, 'let's win the next one'. We have got to have this complete obsession of improving every day, whether it's a training day, a recovery day or a game day,” he said.
"Before the game, it was mentioned about how we'd turned things around. But we haven't turned anything around. If we have the mentality that we have turned it around, then it's the start of the wrong mentality. We are day by day, step by step, just trying to improve.
"We've made some positive steps of late. But we have got to be absolutely paranoid and obsessed with improvement every single day - on and off the pitch.
"That starts with me. Hopefully the guys can keep going as they are.”
The contrast to the last time the Reds faced their East Midlands rivals - a 4-0 defeat at the King Power Stadium in October - is stark. On a similar theme, this time 12 months ago, Forest were ninth in the Championship.
“It sounds like we are at the end of something, and we're not - we're at the start of something, really,” Cooper added. “We have just got to have this complete obsession and paranoia of just improving.
“This club has great status in England, it has history and great values. The club has football soul, and we can build on that.
“Not every club has that, but we do. We’ve got to represent that in such a good way, and today we did. But we’ve got to make sure we get to the training ground and get ready for Bournemouth now.”
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