Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper delighted with youth as Reds win away at fellow promotion-contenders Blackburn Rovers

Nottingham Forest manager Steve Cooper was delighted with the maturity shown by his young side as they won 2-0 away at fellow promotion-contenders Blackburn Rovers to jump into the play-off spots of the Championship table.

Six of Cooper’s starting 11 at Ewood Park were aged 24 or under, and two of them, James Garner and Brennan Johnson, netted for the Reds in what could prove to be a significant victory at the end of the campaign.

With eight yellow cards and a red one shown by referee Joshua Smith on the night, Welshman Cooper reflected on his team’s composure post-match.

“We delivered when it counted tonight. It was a tough Championship game and we stood up to it. I’m really pleased with the togetherness on show, especially because we have a lot of young players in the team.

“It was a feisty game, and we did really well to compose ourselves given we have so many young players. We could’ve lost our heads but to show the maturity that they did is good learning for us, and we will reflect on that tomorrow.

“I thought we more than deserved the win. We knew it was going to be a tough game, but we managed it out really well. We always want to do more, and we could’ve scored three or four in the second half, but we will take the 2-0.”

Having led Swansea City to last year’s Championship play-off final, Cooper left by mutual consent and made the move to the City Ground in September, replacing Chris Hughton.

He also guided the England U17 team to a World Cup triumph in 2017 and has a history of promoting youth. This Forest side is no different with young players stepping up when needed.

He said: “Somebody has to the fill the void of Lewis [Grabban, currently out injured]. We have so many games coming up that not everyone is going to play every game.

“Lewis is a miss but he’s not here and we have to manage that accordingly Xande [Silva] and Sam [Surridge] came off the bench tonight with Brennan [Johnson] and Keinan [Davis] starting, so we have good options and a lot of variety in attack.”

Going close last season with the Swans, Wednesday night’s victory in East Lancashire takes Cooper and Forest into serious contention for a shot at promotion this time around.

Post-match though, the 42-year-old refused to dream about a possible rise to the Premier League.

“We’ve got to be very careful with the language that we use at this point in the season so I wouldn’t say it was a landmark victory tonight.

“There’s a lot of football still to be played but that was the first time in two years that we’ve beat a team who are in the top three. I threw that at the players yesterday and said we needed to sort that out, tonight they did do.

“There’s no prizes for that [being 6^th]now. We want to get back on the bus as quickly as we can, get back to Nottingham and prepare for our next game.”

Forest next welcome Stoke City to the City Ground on Saturday, February 12. The Potters, like many this campaign, are also in the mix for a play-off spot.

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