Sunday 28 September 2014 21:24, UK
Stuart Pearce and Sami Hyypia both demanded more cutting edge from their sides after Nottingham Forest and Brighton ground out a bore draw at the City Ground.
The two teams could not be separated on the pitch and the managers were united in their opinions off it, as they each lamented a lack of attacking threat during a dour 0-0 stalemate.
Forest defender Michael Mancienne sent a late headed chance bouncing over the bar in injury time, while Craig Mackail-Smith flashed a shot wide for the visitors.
But that was as close as either side came to breaking the deadlock and Pearce - who saw Forest slip to second in the Sky Bet Championship table - told his players that a dramatic improvement is required when they travel to Wigan on Tuesday night.
"We had a chance late on, to win the game through Michael Mancienne's header, which we did not take - and that probably summed the game up," said Pearce.
"If we had scored that, we would have taken the three points happily. But the players know that the performance levels need to be improved on massively.
"We did not do enough going forward to hurt the opposition and we have to learn that lesson. Brighton had a passing game and kept possession well - for far too long, in my opinion.
"That will happen at the City Ground this season - teams will be happy to take a point here and move on. But I don't think we had enough energy in the team - and quite a few of our players did not play in midweek, so there was no excuse.
"We needed more energy in and out of possession. Our front four just did not hurt the opposition as much as they have done this season."
Brighton boss Hyypia made the same criticisms of his side - although he was pleased to have shut out Forest.
"I am very happy with the clean sheet, but if you want to win games, you have to score goals and today, we could not create enough chances," he said.
"If you have one chance and it goes in, you win the game. But we need to be creating more and that wasn't the case.
"We worked very hard and we did have chances to get that one important goal, but it was not to be.
"The players are still understanding what we want from them. We need to work with them and hopefully it will soon be working better than it was.
"I am pleased with point, because we knew it was going to be a tough game against a side who have done well this season. If somebody had said we would take a point from the game before kick-off, we would have taken that."
