Nuno Espirito Santo acknowledged no one at Nottingham Forest expected to be third in April but backed his team to embrace the challenge after they started a huge week with victory at Tottenham.
Forest had slipped to sixth in the Premier League after weekend wins for Champions League qualification rivals Manchester City, Chelsea and Aston Villa, yet responded with aplomb in the capital.
Early efforts by Elliot Anderson and Chris Wood put Forest in control and, while Spurs created a number of chances, Richarlison’s 87th-minute header proved too little too late as Forest claimed a potentially pivotal three points in the race for the top five.
After they required a final-day win at Burnley last season to stay up, Nuno’s men have gone from strength to strength and Wood’s 19th goal of the season means they return to London on Sunday for an FA Cup semi-final with Manchester City in buoyant mood.
“First of all we have to realise that we are in a fight that no one expected, us included, and it’s normal, but I don’t want to prove nobody wrong,” Nuno said.
“It’s about us. We have a big desire to compete and the players enjoy. We are in the mix against big teams and that can only make us proud.
“We embrace the challenge. We are ahead of a big week for us, we’re going to Wembley to compete against a big team and there are a lot of games ahead of us. As long as we keep this approach, competing well, you never know.”
Nuno watched Forest make the ideal start with Anderson’s strike deflected past Guglielmo Vicario in the Spurs goal in the fifth minute and it was 2-0 after 17 minutes.
Wood ghosted in between Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven to head home Anthony Elanga’s cross.
Tottenham improved, but Mathys Tel and Richarlison squandered first-half chances before Dejan Kulusevski’s 59th-minute header was brilliantly cleared off the line by Harry Toffolo.
Matz Sels then thwarted Richarlison twice before the Brazil forward did head home a Pedro Porro delivery with three minutes left, but Forest held on.
He added: “Of course the final minutes were full of anxiety, wishing the time to go faster and Tottenham put us against the ropes.
“We are very proud of the way we competed.
“I think the team competed well at the start of the game, we achieve goals and we were dominant even without the ball to try to contain Tottenham.
“Even though they had chances, we had Mats again at a high level, the clearance from Harry Toffolo, but spirit is about that.”
Ange Postecoglou admitted an 18th league loss of the campaign was “unacceptable” but took encouragement from Tottenham’s display.
“It’s another game we have lost where we shouldn’t lose and it’s been a big part of our season in that we are just making things really difficult for ourselves in key moments,” Postecoglou said.
“It’s a shame because our football was outstanding and we totally dominated the game. Even with the two goals we conceded, I still feel like we deserved to win the game.
“At the same time it’s another loss and another unacceptable loss.”
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