Goal hero Ben Osborn revealed that an inspiring team talk from Stuart Pearce– and the continued backing of Nottingham Forest's fans – had been the inspiration behind their morale boosting win at Derby.
The midfielder chose the perfect moment to net his first goal for the club, firing home a spectacular winner for the Reds in injury time at the iPro, to seal a 2-1 win.
The victory will ease some pressure on the side and on their manager, following a previous poor run of form, which included just two wins in 20 outings – and had prompted speculation about Pearce's future.
Osborn, a product of the Forest youth academy, had already put in a man of the match performance, before he beat Lee Grant at his near post in the 92nd minute, to earn hero status among Reds fans.
"It was massively (for the manager). He gave a team talk at the hotel which was quite emotional, prior to the game. It got everyone fired up and made us want to put in a performance," said Osborn. "We also wanted to do it for the fans, because they have backed us all the way, they have been massive for us as well."
Osborn admitted that the match winning moment had a surreal feel to it, saying: "It was unbelievable, I do not feel as though I have done it. All my mates are Derby fans and I was getting messages from them telling me not to score the winner. It has gone and happened, it was my first goal and it was against Derby. It was an unbelievable feeling.
"We were just at them more in the second half. We were better with our set pieces and kept the pressure on them. We won the majority of the 50/50 challenges.
"We just stayed in the game really, which is what we had not been able to do recently. We managed to do that and then we managed to go on and get the win in the end, so we were buzzing."
