Nuno Espirito Santo delivers defiant response when quizzed on Nottingham Forest top four chances, fans will love it

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It’s proving hard not to like Nottingham Forest head coach Nuno Espirito Santo.

The Reds’ head coach came to the club around 12 months ago and the landscape is somewhat different now.

Back then it was a case of keeping the club up at all costs and at times there were some extremely nervy moments.

Evangelos Marinakis considered sacking Espirito Santo twice but the Reds stayed up and now the owner must be glad he gave him a stay of execution.

Jamie Redknapp has hailed Espirito Santo this season and Forest – with a new bedrock of a defensive unit – are sat fourth in the Premier League.

Last weekend, Forest beat Brentford 2-0, with Brian Laws lauding Espirito Santo for the tactical tweak that he made to gear the team towards victory.

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Nuno Espirito Santo clearly annoyed by questions asked after Forest win

Forest have won three games on the trot now since losing to Manchester City 3-0 back at the start of December.

With City having won once in 13 games that result also feels like a missed opportunity but at least Forest have bounced back.

On Saturday there was some tension in the air between Espirito Santo and the media as a question was asked about the team’s position in the table.

The Forest head coach told BBC Sport: “We are not at the end of the season yet sir, we are at the beginning. It’s not about the table. It’s about enjoying the moment and it’s about realising that we didn’t achieve anything yet.

“It’s a very hard competition, and you can see from the results that every game is very difficult and every game we have to compete very, very well and the next one is going to be very tough.

Espirito Santo staying grounded is brilliant for Forest

We think it’s great that Espirito Santo took some sort of offence to the line of questioning at the weekend, with the season less than halfway through at this stage.

That said, fans will naturally start to dream. It’s so long since the club played in Europe that fans can be forgiven for having a little check where they left those passports!

Espirito Santo’s comments suggest, however, that there will be no element of complacency creeping in with the team’s performances over Christmas.

It’s great that the head coach has his feet firmly on the floor and hopefully the team can simply stay in positive spirits and pick up some more points over the festive period.