We Can Reach Automatic Spots

Colin Calderwood still believes Forest are capable of winning automatic promotion this season, but admits an improvement is required in their remaining games.

‘I hope that Bristol will slip up again,’ he said. ‘It has been proven what can happen by results, even those in the championship race. Nobody has a divine right to win any game, as shown by Manchester United losing to Portsmouth.

‘That is why, with your experience of playing in these games and knowing that anything can happen, you just never give up. You always know that something extraordinary might happen.



‘Even if it happens on the last day of the season, it is a fantastic moment in anybody’s career to win promotion and we have to make sure that we are still fighting on the last day of the season for that, against Crewe.

‘Can we get ourselves ahead of the other teams who are challenging? We have to try and do it in the next two or three matches, then we can have a really exciting afternoon on the last day.

‘We are better off than we were before. It is strange how it has come back to four points now.

‘Any team that wins four matches from now on will get a place in the top two, and that includes Blackpool.

‘It would be nice to win the next two, because then it will go to the end of the season.

‘It is always a point gained, of course. But this was an opportunity missed.’

Calderwood was frustrated at Forest’s performance against Rotherham, who are almost certainly doomed to relegation, as his side failed to carve out more than a handful of chances in the second half.

‘The chase for promotion is getting tighter,’ he said. It was another game ticked off that was a perfect opportunity for making up ground.

‘We have got to do what Blackpool have done, in all honesty, which means winning a few games on the bounce.

‘I told you that teams would drop points but it is very apparent that we have not done our job over the Easter weekend.

‘Ideally, we would have wanted one win, which would have given us three points, instead of one.

‘I am more frustrated after this than I was on Saturday. We had an outstanding chance to win. If you want to get promotion, this was one that, by hook or by crook, you needed to win.’