Nottingham Forest Urged to Stay Grounded Despite “Extraordinary” League Position

Nottingham Forest’s league standing at Christmas is “extraordinary,” but the team must “keep their feet on the floor,” according to Colin Fray of BBC Radio Nottingham. The club ascended to fourth place in the league table following their 2-0 victory over Brentford on Saturday. Brentford had been unbeaten at home this season prior to the match. This result places The Reds three points ahead of Bournemouth, currently in fifth position, and only two points adrift of Arsenal, who hold third place. Fray stated: “Who would have given you many odds on that [top four at Christmas] back in August? Nobody really. People weren’t expecting this. People locally might have been thinking that 12th or something like that would have been a great improvement, but nobody was thinking this. Fourth at Christmas is an extraordinary improvement year on year. They finished last year with 32 points and earned 36 on the pitch. They have 31 already but Forest are not going to be going into the new year thinking: ‘That’s it, we have enough points now to stay safe.’ Those objectives are revised now. They need to keep doing what they are doing. They need to strengthen again in January with sensible additions to make them even stronger, even better. Like any side, they will need a little bit of luck with injuries and want to avoid key players getting injured. And they need really to keep their feet on the floor. They can’t get carried away by thinking about the league table and their position.”