According to The Nottingham Post, Forest manager Aitor Karanka has urged his team to be motivated when they face struggling Millwall at The City Ground tonight. 

The Reds are on a five game unbeaten streak in all competitions after a poor start to the season, and now sit in 11th place in the Championship table. Meanwhile, Millwall sit in 23rd place with only one win this term.

While this may be seen as an easy win for Karanka's men, he has been very wise to keep his team grounded, so that they do not look beyond The Lions tonight. It could be easy to look past their opponents, with one eye on Saturday's journey to high-flyers Middlesbrough, but that would be lethal.

There is no point in targeting the match against Boro if they sacrifice points tonight. The Reds sit three points behind Tony Pulis' men, and a win would mean that they can have the opportunity to close the gap on them tonight.

The luxury Karanka has is being able to rotate his squad to keep them fresh before Saturday's fixture. The Reds' squad depth allows them to do this without weakening their side too much. Middlesbrough do not have that option as much, and it may fall into Forest's hands.

But if Nottingham Forest have any aspirations of making the play-offs this season, or better, they simply must win games like tonight's, and Karanka is right to take them seriously. His job is making sure his players do too.