NOTTINGHAM Forest must learn how to win ugly if they are to be a success in the Championship next season.
That is the message from Gary Brazil, who believes the Reds have the quality to play outstanding football – but also need to start grinding out results.
The Reds' caretaker boss until the end of last season believes the key to success when it comes to securing a place in the Premier League is getting into the habit of picking up points, even when you are not playing well.
Both Leicester and Burnley have played some outstanding football on their way to promotion. But the Championship top two have also scraped their way to victories when they have had to.
And Brazil said: "As a group you can play good football in this league, but you also have to learn how to win games of football, manage a game and see games through.
"At times you cannot play pretty football. At times you can't play nice football.
"The important thing is being in the habit of winning games. I look at the teams at the top end of this league, at the teams who have been promoted, and they are well organised and they know how to win games of football. They go about things in the right way.
"Of course we have a responsibility to give a good performance and play good football – but we also need to get back into the habit, as a football club, of winning football matches."
Even Brighton, on the final day of the campaign, secured the three points they desperately needed despite having been unconvincing, going forward, for long periods.
Forest had allowed them few clear attempts on goal before Leonardo Ulloa darted onto the end of a cross from Craig Mackail-Smith to secure a 2-1 victory in injury time.
And it is that kind of determination Brazil hopes to see in Forest next season.
"Sometimes you have to win ugly," he said.
"There are times when you can put on a good performance and there are other times, like this game, where you just have to close things out. You close things out and you win the game 1-0. End of story."
Brazil has always refused to use the club's injury problems as an excuse and maintains that, even with 16 players unavailable in the final game against Brighton, Forest had enough quality available to have won.
"We were down to bare bones. That is not an excuse, because we should have won that game with the players we had out on the pitch," he said.
"There was never a time in the build up, even when we knew what we had available, that we were thinking 'I hope we don't get smashed'.
"Maybe we have just got too used to losing.
"There is a default position we go to in games where, when push comes to shove and we are asked questions, you don't like the answers we get."
Stuart Pearce's first game as Nottingham Forest manager could be at Ilkeston FC.
The Reds have announced a trip to the New Manor Ground, on Saturday, July 12 (1pm), as the first of their pre-season friendly fixtures.
In previous years, Forest have often arranged two games on the same day, early in their pre-season preparations, against non-league opposition, to give their entire squad an early taste of the action.
But the game against the Evo-Stik Premier side is so far the only friendly announced.
