Nottingham Forest boss Steve Cooper accepts they need more than courageous defeats.
Forest again had their moments in defeat to Tottenham last nigt.
Cooper said: “It’s hard to be too positive, because you can’t with the run of results. Fulham was a complete outlier and will speak for itself – and rightly so – but all the other losses, we look at it and think things like we should have made that pass and not given that second goal away. But at the same time, that is the level we play at.
“We can’t carry on being shoulda, woulda, coulda. It’s got to be yep, we’ve made that pass, we’ve not given away that goal, we’ve stuck to the plan for 90 minutes.
“I do look deeper than the results and I do see the positives. But I can’t shout about that too much because the results rightly write most of the narrative.
“The most important thing is to really believe in the players. The moment anyone loses belief, the players will feel it and then they won’t be as alive as they need to be when they are playing.
“We’ve got some young players that need backing and need reassuring. Of course we have a demanding environment and there is nothing fluffy about what we do, but at the same time this is an era where you need people to feel good about themselves and back themselves.
“At the same time, we have to face up to the fact that we have to do better. To do that, in my opinion, the first thing to do is to recognise it, own it and take responsibility for it – whether that’s the boys at the top end of the pitch or the goalkeeper.
“The last thing we need to do now is shy away. I don’t think you saw that tonight, but we didn’t see the quality that was needed in those moments either.”
