Ange Postecoglou has cautioned his Nottingham Forest players that nothing will be handed to them on a plate after they were dumped out of the Carabao Cup in heartbreaking circumstances by Swansea City.
Igor Jesus' double had given the Reds complete command of the third-round clash in south Wales. However, following Cameron Burgess' strike that narrowed the gap with 20 minutes remaining, the Welsh side netted twice during stoppage time to completely reverse the outcome.
Burgess secured the decisive goal in the 97th minute, moments after Zan Vipotnik's equaliser appeared destined to force the match into penalties. The result left a devastated Postecoglou lamenting a squandered chance and continuing his hunt for an inaugural triumph as manager.
"It was very disappointing. It was a game we were well in control of and we should have seen it out a lot better than we did," the Forest chief remarked following his side's 3-2 defeat.
"We certainly had the opportunities to kill the game off in the second half. I just got a sense the players thought it was sort of just going to happen automatically - that we were totally in control of the game."
"It's cup football. We should have been a lot more prepared for what was going to come and handled it a lot better than we did. It's not about me. It's about the club. It's about us progressing and creating an environment where we can have real success.
"Tonight was a great opportunity for us to progress in a cup and give ourselves an opportunity to get that success. To let it slip is hugely disappointing.
"We need to understand that we are going to have to earn everything we are going to get; it's not just going to come to us. I just got the feeling tonight that towards the end we just thought it would naturally pan out that we would win the game. That's not how football works.
"You learn a lot from everything. From my perspective, you understand some of the things we need to work on so we can get to where we want to."
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Forest had opportunities to extend their lead given by Jesus. Substitute Arnaud Kalimuendo believed he had increased the score to 3-0 when he scored from the bench, but his goal was disallowed due to offside.
Kalimuendo wasn't the only new signing to impress during the match. However, for Postecoglou, any positives were overshadowed by disappointment.
"It was fairly evident the players needed to play tonight, because there were quite a few not in match rhythm and certainly lacking match conditioning. But within that context, I still thought we had some really good moments and played some decent football," he added.
"We scored a couple of really good goals. We scored a good third goal that shouldn't have been disallowed.
"At the same time, with all that, we should have handled it better in that last half-hour. We should have stayed calm. There was no need for us to be so frenetic in our football.
"I just got the sense we thought we would get a third and finish them off. Yes, we had chances to do that but when you don't put them away there is always the opportunity for the opposition. I was disappointed we couldn't handle it better.
"The overriding factor is we are out of a cup competition that really we should have progressed in. That opportunity, we shouldn't have lost.
"We can look at the individuals within that, and there were some promising performances. But all that fades away when you realise we missed a great opportunity to progress."