Karanka admits Forest are feeling the pressure

Posted Sunday, February 11, 2018 by PA

Aitor Karanka says Nottingham Forest must learn to cope with the pressure of playing in the Championship – and particularly at the City Ground – after struggling Hull condemned them to a fifth consecutive home defeat.

A ninth-minute goal from Jon Toral – moments after he failed to score from the penalty spot – and Harry Wilson’s finish eight minutes before half-time helped the Tigers to a 2-0 win that ended a run of nine Championship games without a win and heaped more misery on the Reds.

Karanka has not been in charge for that entire poor run of home form but has now seen Forest lose five of his first six games in charge and, while he remains confident he will bring success to Forest, he also says his players must show their character.

“I told the players that this is about pressure and managing pressure. It is not easy to play in this situation,” said Karanka, who has made 10 new signings in the last few weeks.

“They will soon tell me and show me who is ready to play.

“I came here to win games and be successful and I am not going to stop until we make that happen.

“It was another poor afternoon and I hope it is the last one. It is difficult to understand.

“We have to keep going. I understand the crowd’s frustration. I am still confident. We have made a lot of changes in the last two weeks.”

Forest had lost 3-0 to Preston in their last home outing and this was an almost identical display.

“This was almost the same team that faced Preston and I wanted to give them another opportunity, because the performance against Fulham last weekend was really good,” said Karanka.

“But the performance against Preston and the performance today was almost the same thing. It was disappointing.”

Delighted Hull boss Nigel Adkins felt his side could have won by an even bigger margin but was mainly happy to have ended their recent run.

“It was good to win, we’re working extremely hard and we’ve scored a goal right from the start and the second was counter-attacking football at its best,” he said.

“We should have scored a third and I thought we were very resolute and Forest didn’t have any chances. The players showed the determination and we’ve been working hard.

“We have probably played better than that away from home and not won. It was a structured performance and a well deserved victory. I didn’t realise we were out of the bottom (three) of the table.

“We believe and there is a lot of good things going on behind the scenes. I know it works and our performances have been consistently good.

“We look a team, we look structured and organised. We have created chances in all our games but our conversion rate hasn’t been there.”