Roy Keane said there were encouraging signs against Forest but the point summed up where Town are at the moment.

Grant Leadbitter gave Blues the perfect start with a goal after 42 seconds but Rob Earnshaw levelled the scores for the visitors just a minute after coming on as a second-half substitute.

"We got a great start with the goal and played some good stuff in the first-half," said Roy.

"The second goal was always going to be vital and Earnshaw took his chance well and after that the momentum switched to them for the last 25 minutes.

"We wanted to freshen it up and make changes up front - Jon Walters and Jon Stead worked hard - but we couldn't do that because of injuries. Carlos [Edwards] felt his hamstring and then Liam Rosenior was struggling with a badly swollen eye. We were ready to bring Pablo on but had to change it and finished the game with Jaime Peters at right-back and Lee Martin in the middle.

"Forest have got attacking options. Dele Adebola and Earnshaw are experienced players and they freshed them up but the injuries certainly meant we were limited in what we could do.

"The game probably sums up where we are at the moment. I'm not sure how we contrived to end up with Gareth bringing down Adebola at the end and it was very close to being a penalty. We had good possession but ended up on the edge of our own box.

"There were some encouraging signs at times but we are still short and looking to Saturday, one or two of our injured players have to be doubtful just when we think we are moving forward."