With 17 games left of the Championship season, Nottingham Forest’s fate is still to be decided. Whether this proves to be their final visit to Griffin Park will depend on the vagaries of the promotion battle still to come but if the rest of the division had not regarded them as serious contenders in that fight, they should do now.



Forest’s hard-earned 1-0 success against Brentford, the team many regard as being the favourites to gatecrash the top two, extended their unbeaten run to seven games and pitched them right back into the automatic promotion race. A gap that had once stood at 16 points between them and West Brom is now made up of just two points. Leaders Leeds United are only four points ahead.



And the 1,600 fans who had made the journey south loudly sang their approval — and the name of Sabri Lamouchi — after the final whistle had blown and their side had climbed up into third place.



But, while fans will wait to see whether a...