So why can’t Forest do this every week?
Ben oSBorn has challenged his nottingham Forest team-mates to start producing this level of performance consistently, not just against bigger teams.
Forest followed up their Fa Cup win over arsenal by deservedly beating Championship leaders Wolves after one of the most intense weeks of training osborn has known.
aitor karanka imbued his new players with his renowned defensive organisation in his first full week of training, leaving osborn exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure.
Wolves were never allowed to find their usual attacking rhythm as Forest played an intelligently compact game, pressing at the right times.
osborn, who scored the critical second goal shortly after kieran dowell’s opener in the five minutes before half-time, admitted karanka had recalibrated Forest’s approach.
The 23-year-old midfielder said: ‘The way he wanted to do things was a bit different. What we worked on was one of the most intense weeks i’ve had since being at Forest.
‘ Tuesday and Wednesday we did a lot of 11 v 11 work with high intensity and it’s something that has really been drilled into us.
‘We’ve been in the ice bath for the past two days trying to recover. Thankfully it worked today and it paid dividends.
‘He has been working on intensity and when and where to press, what he wants from us and just to work as a team with everyone buying into the same thing.
‘even i am a little bit surprised with the result today but i was confident going in.
‘We’ve shown glimpses against arsenal and Wolves that we can do it against the big teams and
we can grind out results. We need a bit of consistency. This should give us massive belief that we can do it.’ Playmaker Osborn admitted Forest’s drop towards the lower end of the Championship had made him ‘angry’ and ‘sickened’. Karanka made his managerial name by making Middlesbrough difficult to beat and Forest, with only one clean sheet on the road under Mark Warburton in the first half of the season, have now kept blanks at Leeds and Wolves since the managerial change.
Osborn admitted the Spaniard had instructed Forest to put their foot in against a Wolves side who are finally showing signs of slowing up.
Three Forest players were booked in the first half-hour as they refused to allow Wolves to get into their stride.
‘We thought they might start with a bit of arrogance so we needed to get in their faces,’ Osborn confirmed.
This was Wolves’ first defeat in 14 league games but they have not won in four matches all told, scoring only 11 times in as many games.
Captain Conor Coady admitted Wolves were a ‘bit lethargic, a bit sloppy in possession’ but that their nine-point lead should not lull observers into believing this division is a piece of cake.
‘This is a good division, a good Championship,’ he said. ‘It’s full of good defences that are really tough to break down. But we’ve got to find solutions for that.’
Wolves are travelling to Spain for a week of warmweather training. Boss Nuno Espirito Santo said the weather played a big part in the decision to go.
‘It was a decision that we made to go to a camp and work in a different environment,’ he said. ‘One of the issues is the weather. We need vitamin D, we need the sun. We need to work in an environment with better weather conditions. We’re going to spend 24 hours a day with each other, only us.’