Steve Cotterill was delighted after Nottingham Forest caused an upset at Birmingham, reserving particular praise for Dexter Blackstock.
Hughton feels Birmingham deserved to take something from clash
Manager Steve Cotterill was delighted after Nottingham Forest caused an upset at Birmingham on Saturday, reserving particular praise for striker Dexter Blackstock.
Forest became the first Championship side to win at St Andrew's this season when they clinched a much-needed 2-1 victory, with Blackstock netting both goals.
Cotterill was especially pleased with the striker as Forest secured back-to-back wins for the first time since October to boost their hopes of avoiding relegation.
Amazing
Commenting upon Blackstock's performance, the manager said: "He has done fantastically well to come back from a very serious injury.
"There have been signs over the last three weeks that he has been coming back to his old form.
"All credit to him to come back from the injury. It has been amazing. He has had a real bad injury and has shown great character. He has done remarkably well to come back and play. That is how bad the injury was and it could easily have finished him.
"He did well scoring twice against a Birmingham side that has been fantastic this season. I do not want to take anything away from them in our elation.
"We have to be pleased for ourselves in picking up this win. It is a huge fillip for us but at Forest we are humble about our victories as we have not had many."
Blues boss Chris Hughton feels his side did not deserve to lose, although admits they have produced better displays.
He said: "The performance was disappointing but at 1-1 I thought we were going to get a result.
"You always hold up your hands if a team come and play really well and deserve to win but generally I don't think, although it was not one of our better performances, we deserved to lose the game.
"That makes it even more disappointing to lose to a Nottingham Forest side I believe will avoid relegation."
Poor
Hughton says he had to speak in strong terms at half-time after a poor first period.
He said: "You have to get into them and assess what went wrong. We were not ourselves on a difficult pitch in the first half, we didn't get the ball down into some good passages of play.
"As a result we didn't give our front two quality balls to hurt Forest. So it was not a surprise to be trailing but we were better in the second half and after Burke equalised the general feeling that if one team was going on to win, it would be us.
"I got a response in the second and I am really disappointed to lose. Losing our unbeaten record is tough to take but you have to give Forest credit. It was a dogged performance."
