Thoughts From The Top

Dean Wilkins felt Brighton’s more direct approach paid dividends as his side came from behind to win a match for the first time in 14 months.



Wilkins made no apology for the Seagulls looking ‘a bit ugly’ at times, but was delighted their first home win in 10 weeks had further eased relegation fears.

Two goals in two second-half minutes from skipper Dean Hammond and Nick Ward gave Brighton victory after Jack Lester had fired Forest ahead 10 minutes after the break.

Wilkins said: ‘It’s not always easy to pass the ball around at this time of year and sometimes you have more success by going route one.

‘We were too low key at the start of the game but after we changed formation we finished the second half stronger.’

Wilkins admitted he had been through every emotion during the course of the game.

He added: ‘The match felt like the whole season rolled into one. Sometimes we looked half asleep, sometimes we looked good technically and other times we looked technically poor.’

Wilkins kept faith with the strike pairing of Joe Gatting and new signing Bas Savage and is encouraged at the way a physical edge is developing to their forward play.

He believes they are taking advantage of their height and strength, and enthused: ‘Physically we looked strong at the end of the game.

‘We finished with three big guys up front as Nathan Elder had come on as a substitute and drew the free-kick from which Hammond scored to get us back into the game.’

Forest manager Colin Calderwood believed Nathan Tyson could have no complaints after he was shown a red card following a tussle with defender Adam El-Abd.

He said: ‘I’ve got no complaints about it.

‘Nathan raised his arm above his chest but he has told us the defender (El-Abd) had his hand up before that. He didn’t want Nathan running into the area he was defending.’

The promotion-chasing Reds have taken just two points from their last six away games, and Calderwood felt there was no way his side should have been beaten.

He added: ‘We contributed to our defeat. The domination we had in the first half was good and we looked a fairly decent side for 60 minutes. We know we shouldn’t have been beaten.

‘The most annoying thing from our point of view is Brighton’s first goal. But overall I was more than happy with the way we played.’





Nottingham Evening Post