DANNY Collins today warned Nottingham Forest have under-achieved so far this season – and says they must get back on track when they face Middlesbrough tomorrow.
The defeat 4-1 against Millwall on Saturday was just the third of the season for Sean O'Driscoll's side, which is as few as any club in the Championship, after 14 games.
And Forest still remain within two points of the play-off places, after seeing a five-match unbeaten run brought to an end at the City Ground.
But the Reds have grand ambitions this season and skipper Collins says the squad have so far not lived up to their abilities.
"We have only lost three this season, which is not bad in terms of stats – but we are not where we wanted to be at this stage in the campaign," he said.
"People talk about it being a new team and needing time to gel, but we feel we have enough to be pushing on and doing better than we are at the minute.
"We have only dropped one place, which is fortunate. If we beat Boro tomorrow – which we will be aiming to do – it will make amends for what happened here and it could get us closer to where we want to be.
"But we have the ability in the squad to be doing better than we are."
Collins does concede that Saturday's defeat against Millwall came as a painful surprise.
"I don't bet, but if I did, I would never bet on a Championship game because you never know what is going to happen. Everyone can beat everyone else, it is hard to predict," he said.
"You have to be consistent and we have been this season. We were unbeaten for seven or so at the start and we were unbeaten in five prior to Millwall. This is an unpredictable league and we will be looking to turn this feeling around straight away on Tuesday.
"We are disappointed. The fans will be disappointed. But we just have to respond to this.
"We will look at the video, we will look at where things have gone wrong, at where we can be better and we will look to make sure we respond to those things on Tuesday.
"It is an opportunity for us to push on again against Boro. They had a good result at the weekend. But we will dust ourselves off and we will be hungry to play again, because it is better than having a week to stew over what happened."
