Wednesday 18 March 2015 22:49, UK
Nottingham Forest manager Dougie Freedman believes his side's 2-0 win over Rotherham has given them a "great chance" of gatecrashing the Sky Bet Championship play-offs.
Goals from Dexter Blackstock and Michail Antonio in the space of 113 first-half seconds were enough for Forest to see off the Millers and remain eight points adrift of the top six with eight games remaining.
It has looked for some time as if the battle for the play-offs would be played out between the current top six and also Ipswich and Wolves, but Forest still have the chance to make a late push.
They still have games against Wolves, Watford and Brentford and Freedman knows they are in a good position to make a move.
"I just felt with the teams winning last night we had to come and win a game of football when the pressure is on us and we delivered again," he said. "We have got to go and play Wolves and Brentford and Watford so we have given ourselves a great chance.
"We can take some points off the teams above us, we just have to make sure we are very professional and responsible in the way we approach it."
Forest were nowhere near their best against the relegation-threatened Millers, but it was a comfortable win thanks to that two-goal salvo.
And Freedman was delighted his game plan of stifling Steve Evans' men early on worked.
"It was a fantastic performance, really professional," he added. "We had to make sure we dampened them in the opening 10 minutes, we knew they would come out of the traps flying.
"We grew into the game and then the goals come along. It was a very comfortable win and could have been by more goals.
"We had a plan, that was to dampen them down in the first 10 minutes we went on to play some fantastic football in the second half. I am happy all in all. It was a real team performance."
Blackstock bagged the opener in the 43rd minute when he lobbed out-of-position goalkeeper Adam Collin with Antonio slamming in a second from distance shortly after.
Despite competing well, that left the Millers with a mountain to climb in the second half and it could have been a different story had Lee Frecklington not hit the post or Forest goalkeeper Karl Darlow pulled off a superb save to deny Conor Sammon.
"It's a cruel game, we were the better side in the first half for long spells," Millers boss Evans said. "Adam makes his mistake, he shouldn't have come. Then we lost our shape from the restart.
"We turned at 2-0 down and people were shaking their heads in the dressing room.
"We had a reaction in the second half against a team who have been rampant in recent weeks.
"Their keeper makes a world class save and they are the fine margins, we have an error in the first half and their keeper makes a world class save.
"We would have been disappointed to be one down at half-time so to be two down was pretty hard to take.
"I have got to be pleased with the performance overall."
