Steve Cooper offers Nottingham Forest attitude verdict following Sheffield United victory

The Reds won 2-1 at Bramall Lane to take a one-goal advantage into their Championship play-off semi-final second leg with Sheffield United.

Goals either side of half time from Jack Colback and Brennan Johnson had given Forest a deserved 2-0 lead.

But a late finish from Sander Berge pulled one back for Paul Heckingbottom’s side to keep the tie in the balance going into Tuesday night’s second leg.

Cooper believes the team showed their commitment to attacking football against the Blades, with Forest clearly having the upper hand for much of the game, despite a hostile home crowd.

“I hope that performance was indicative of our attitude,” said Cooper, via The Athletic.

“That was definitely our intention. Somebody asked me before the game what would be a good result for us — we wanted to win.

“A draw would not have been a disaster. Even a narrow loss would not have been the end of the world. 

“But we have tackled and challenged everything that has been put in front of us this season head-on. Let’s not change now.

“Let’s play the way we play, let’s work the way we work and believe in what we do — then see where that takes us. 

“Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we do not. But we know what we want to do. 

“We got into the play-offs with four games to go. We did not talk about that much because we were looking at automatic. But to do that means that you have done a lot of things well.

“You need to look at that, look at what you do and focus on doing what has got you here, even better again. We play attacking football, we create chances, we take risks.”

Cooper’s side had ended the season in fine form, but only one point from their final two games had raised concerns over if the team had peaked too soon.

But Saturday’s