Cooper: Forest's tunnel vision and standing on the shoulders of giants

When Steve Cooper was appointed as Nottingham Forest last September, he arrived with just one initial objective.

To get out of the relegation zone.

The Reds had started the season miserably under Chris Hughton and were sat rock bottom of the Championship table after six defeats from the first seven games. They were 20th after eight games last term, too, and there was no sign of a rare challenge for promotion in sight.

Eight months down the line, Cooper's side are hours away from the play-off final, where they will take on Huddersfield, hoping to regain a place in the Premier League after almost a quarter of a century away.

There is no doubting they richly deserve to be in this position. In the 38 league games that followed September 21, no team earned more points than Forest (76), lost fewer games (six) or conceded fewer goals (28). Indeed, only eventual champions Fulham matched their win total (22) and beat their figure of goals scored (66 vs 88).

To transform a team's fortunes as the Welshman has done in such a short space of time is largely unheard of in the Championship, which is, notoriously, one of the most unpredictable divisions.

So how on Earth did he do it?

"It was still fairly early on in the season [when I joined], with seven or eight games gone, so there was still a lot to play for," he tells Sky Sports in an exclusive interview ahead of Sunday's trip to Wembley.

"We had three games before the international break and agreed with the players to set the objective that, by the time the international break had come that we were over the dotted line of the relegation zone. None of us liked the sight of being where we were.

"We got a draw here against Millwall then went and beat Barnsley and Birmingham away and