Head coach Steve Cooper is determined to keep giving Nottingham Forest fans a team to be proud of as the Reds fight to retain their Premier League status.
Serge Aurier’s goal clinched a point for the hosts as they came from behind to draw 1-1 with Chelsea at the City Ground on New Year’s Day. They are now level on points with 17th-placed West Ham United, but Cooper’s side could easily have claimed victory over the Blues.
Roared on by a sold-out crowd, a positive second half saw Forest well on top. Taiwo Awoniyi and Brennan Johnson both forced saves while Morgan Gibbs-White hit the bar before the equaliser came just past the hour.
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“They’re brilliant,” Cooper said of the Reds supporters. “I love it when people come here (to the City Ground) for the first time in a while and they feel it. We’re lucky that we get to feel it every game because we’re here.
“I repeat, we will not take it for granted. We don’t feel entitled by it. We’re dead appreciative of it, but we’ve got to earn the support.
“Just because we’ve had it this time doesn’t mean we’ll get it straight away in the next game. The fans have got to see a team that is trying for the club. They saw that. The city responds off things like that anyway, not just the football club. You sense that from living in and around it.
“The fans are probably a bit like me, pleased with the efforts, pleased with coming back, maybe half-pleased with the result, but definitely a feeling of ‘we can do it at this level’.”
A number of decisions which went against Forest in the first half, particularly, also helped raise the volume level Trentside. Referee Peter Bankes was on the receiving end of a fair amount of stick as fans made their feelings clear.
Cooper added: “It was interesting, a couple of things that went on. But the fans felt, ‘hang on a minute, this ain’t going as it should be, so let’s respond, stand up and be counted, don’t try to be affected by things that should be better than what they are’. That definitely helped the occasion, for sure.”
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