Freedman – We’re Underdogs Against Boro

Manager Dougie Freedman has said that few will be expecting Nottingham Forest to get a result at the Riverside Stadium against Championship topping Middlesbrough this weekend but going into the game as underdogs doesn’t bother him one bit as it takes all the pressure off the players and it means they can just focus on playing their game without any distractions.

With Middlesbrough’s form well known this year, having missed out narrowly on promotion last season, Forest’s own unbeaten in eleven run has attracted attention but the gaffer knows it figures for little in this particular match.

Speaking to the Gazette Live in his pre match interview commitments, Freedman explained.

‘We will go there in confident mood. It is a game where everyone will doubt us – and that is where we thrive. Any time we have been doubted this season, we have thrived on proving people wrong.’

With doubts surrounding his future at the club when Forest went nine games with just one win earlier on in the campaign, it has been a good turnaround and our last loss came in November and we sit ten points shy of the top six, but for Freedman it’s just about continuing to do what we’ve been doing as now we are getting the rewards of that on the pitch.

The aim this weekend will be to keep that unbeaten run going or really raise some eyebrows with victory over them given they have had a mini stutter of late themselves.

The Nottingham Post have him quoted as saying.

‘It is a very difficult match, but we are on a good run of form. The players are in form and there are not a lot of goals in many of our games. We need to make sure that we continue to defend well; that we are strong. If we can do that, if we can take the game to them, why not? It will be a very tactical game because I have had numerous tactical battles with their manager in the past. When we played them at home we had the opportunities to win, so it will be a tactical battle again. But we are in confident mood and, if people do want to doubt us, we will thrive on trying to prove them wrong.’