Sunday 8 March 2015 11:34, UK
Nottingham Forest manager Dougie Freedman backed Middlesbrough to win the Championship title after watching his side defeat the promotion chasers 2-1 at the City Ground.
Forest again had to show their character to come from behind and return to winning ways under Freedman after Grant Leadbitter's cross-shot had found the back of the net off the inside of the post in the 27th minute.
Gary Gardner scored his second spectacular goal in the space of three games as he fired the ball high into the corner of the net from the edge of the box seven minutes later.
And, while they had to ride out long spells of Middlesbrough pressure in the final stages, Dexter Blackstock's neat turn and finish, after being fed by Michail Antonio in the 65th minute, was enough to secure the Reds' sixth win in eight games since the Scotsman took charge.
Forest had lost for the first time under Freedman in midweek and he felt this was the perfect response.
He said: "I am delighted with the super-human effort the players showed today and I am delighted with the response they produced to going behind, to suffering a set-back against the best team in the league, the strongest squad in the league and the one that will probably go on to win the title.
"I am so delighted for the players and what they have achieved. The game was about concentration. If you wanted to see the perfect definition of a team fighting for their lives, that is what we were doing in the final stages.
"We are in the business of winning games and we feel as though we are getting a winning mentality around the place.
"These are a great bunch of players to work with, they do exactly what you ask of them. They work as a team and they never give up. We never let set-backs influence us and as long as we have that, we have a chance of being a success."
Boro boss Aitor Karanka cut a more frustrated figure and questioned why his players had failed to listen to the instructions they were given prior to the game.
"This was a game where you are left to go home feeling a sense of disappointment, because it is difficult to understand the performance," he said.
"When you have spent many hours on the training ground preparing for the game, when you explain to the players everything that will happen - and then it does happen - it is difficult.
"We knew this was the way the game would be played. But they scored the goals exactly how they normally do and exactly how we had prepared the players for.
"We have one week now to think about this game and what has happened. We have to learn from it.
"We did not play well, we did not do the things that we said we had to do and we lost. This season will go right to the end, it will be close. But we have to be intelligent and we have to learn from this."
