Sabri Lamouchi wants more 'maturity and personality' from his Nottingham Forest players

Nottingham Forest boss Sabri Lamouchi is looking for more "maturity and personality" from his side when Birmingham City visit to the City Ground on Saturday.
Sabri LamouchiSabri Lamouchi
Sabri Lamouchi

Fleetwood, managed by Joey Barton, have enjoyed a blistering start to their league campaign, winning the first two - with Forest, in comparison, having picked up just a point.

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And it is the Championship where Lamouchi's focus now lies ahead of a second-round date with Derby County on the horizon after three league matches in quick succession.

"We must take this victory into another difficult game against Birmingham on Saturday but we must play with more maturity and personality if we are going to win that game," said Lamouchi following the cup win in which he fielded a much-changed Forest side to the one which played at Leeds United.

RELATED ARTICLE: 'Only a matter of time' before once Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest and QPR defender departs Aberdeen - Championship rumoursThere were debuts for Samba Brice, Carl Jenkinson, Yuri Ribeiro and John Bostock with Samba Sow, Sammy Ameobi and Rafa Mir making first starts for the club.

While Tobias Figueiredo and Arvin Appiah were named in the starting XI for the first time this season, with only captain Joe Worrall and Tiago Silva continuing from Saturday.

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"I know we had a lot of new players in the side and a lot of changes but we need to do much better," said Lamouchi. "When you are at home and you take a 1-0 lead, you must play with more confidence and not with so much tension or panic. Despite that, a victory is a victory and I'm happy for that."

Sabri LamouchiSabri Lamouchi
Sabri Lamouchi

It was Silva's goal which separated the two sides and sent the home faithful looking forward to a cup clash with rivals Derby County, scheduled for Tuesday 27th August (7.45pm).

"I'm positive just for the result because in the first round of the cup it is always a trap game. We started the game well and I think we deserved to score when we did but after the goal we stopped playing, we didn't keep the ball and we made it really hard for ourselves.

"In this kind of game we must do more to control it. We were a little bit lucky at the end and they had two good chances to score. I said to Joey at the end that his team played well and they caused problems for my team but we must do better in terms of controlling the football," added Lamouchi.