Forest 0-2 Spurs | Ange’s verdict: “We had to earn that win”

Ange Postecoglou expressed his pride at the team's performance after we came through a testing night to secure a 2-0 win at Forest on Friday evening.

Richarlison headed us into the lead from the outstanding Dejan Kulusevski’s cross in first half injury time before Deki intercepted Forest keeper Matt Turner’s clearance, raced into the box and powered home his finish for 2-0 on 62 minutes.

It was far from plain sailing though. We were forced into a reshuffle after losing Brennan Johnson to a nasty head cut on 32 minutes – Deki moved out wide, Oliver Skipp came into midfield – and we were down to 10 men on 70 minutes when Yves Bissouma was sent off. We defended stoutly though to keep Forest at bay.

Speaking to our Review Show, Ange reflected: “I’m really proud of the lads. We had to earn the win tonight, it was a tough game, they’re obviously desperate for results here and it’s not an easy place to come to.

“They test you in ways other teams don’t, a lot of long throws in the box and things we had to deal with, but I thought we held out really well and still played some decent football at times, created some good chances and scored two good goals.

“It wasn’t a game where we weren’t going to get challenged in that way. They are throwing the ball into the box from virtually the halfway line, so you are going to have to deal with that, it’s unavoidable. I thought Vic, Ben Davies, Romero were outstanding. The whole team handled it really well.

“There is plenty for us to take away from that performance in terms of the character and courage the players showed. We lose another couple of players now, Destiny out (suspended after receiving his fifth yellow card) next week, and Biss will be out for quite a while, so that’s disappointing, but we’ve had to deal with these things all year and we’ll have to get on with it.”

Meanwhile, Ange said Brennan’s injury is ‘nothing that should keep him out’ – here’s his update.