NUNO ESPIRITO SANTO says his Nottingham Forest side will fight until the end to achieve their Champions League dream.

Forest’s excellent campaign has hit the buffers in the past fortnight with back-to-back Premier League defeats hurting their chances of qualifying for Europe’s premier club competition.

Newcastle, Manchester City and Aston Villa are all hitting form and Forest could be sixth by the time they play at Tottenham on Monday, but Nuno – after seeing his side occupy a top-four spot since November – says his men are not going to go quietly.

“Nothing has changed since last week — it is up to us, it’s in our hands, we can’t control other teams, we can’t control the results,” he said.

“We have to focus, and it’s about improvement. Now it’s about reacting and improving.

“The expectation around us started the moment we were able to perform and get results.

“We embrace the challenges, we are not stepping back. We are stepping in. We want to embrace it. We want to try and get it.

“It’s going to be very hard but believe me, we are stepping in and putting everything that you have in these final moments of the season.”

Forest look set to be without influential full-back Ola Aina (calf) and Taiwo Awoniyi (hamstring) but Chris Wood has had a full week of training following his recent hip problem.

“Of course we have to manage Chris,” Nuno added. “He has been out for a while. He was unable to play in the previous games because of his injury.

“The effort was good, but not as good as we want. Now we are positive that on Monday Chris is going to be better.”