Nottingham Forest won their first Premier League game under Vitor Pereira at Tottenham Hotspur
Vitor Pereira has ‘steadied’ the ship at Nottingham Forest after guiding the Reds to two important wins in three days.
Having steered his side past FC Midtjylland on Thursday night, Forest went to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday and hammered their relegation rivals 3-0.
They are now in the quarter-finals of the Europa League and two places and three points above the bottom three and while Simon Jordan thinks they could yet have a ‘spectacular’ end to their season, what is clear in his mind is that Pereira has brought a stability to the City Ground.
“The win in the Europa League was a very commendable win, given the fact that they'd played them earlier on in the season and lost to them, you've got to look at that and say that's a good result. It wasn't expected for Forest to go through in that tie,” Jordan told talkSPORT.
“More compellingly for them beyond all of that is the fact that they've gone to Spurs and beat [sic] Spurs in a game that most people would have felt that Spurs might have been on the road to recovery, they might have found some degree of momentum going forward after the Liverpool game, after the Atletico Madrid game.
“I thought Forest looked very composed and very assured and started the game very brightly. Spurs were in the game, I thought they were very unlucky to be 1-0 down at halftime – some of the defending from Spurs is just appalling... Spurs are right in amongst it now.
“So going to Forest's question, Pereira's come in. He did the same job at Wolves 18 months ago, steadied them, settled them down. They've still got a long way to go. The interesting thing for me is watching the teams around them.
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“I still think for whatever reason it might be just blind belief in the Tottenham Hotspur image, that it'll still be the bottom three [now] that's in the bottom three [at the end of the season] – or possibly Leeds will get dragged into it because I think Leeds are drawing their way to safety.
“This remarkable run of games that Leeds are playing in where they're not getting beat, but they're still only two or three points away from the relegation zone and somewhere along the line, somebody's going to catch up with them, I fear.
“I hope not. I don't want any of the teams to get relegated, but from Forest's point of view, I thought they did really, really well in that game, and that's a credit to the manager.”