Chris Wood has attributed his goal-scoring heroics to the confidence Nuno Espirito Santo has invested in him.

The Nottingham Forest striker bagged his fifth goal of the season in Monday night's 1-0 win over Crystal Palace, a second half bobbler thank crept under Dean Henderson to give the Reds their first home win of the campaign.

It also lifted them to eighth in the table and means that this season only Erling Haaland, Cole Palmer and Bryan Mbeumo have scored more league goals. Indeed only the Man City talisman and the brilliant Chelsea youngster have bagged more top flight goals than Wood since his current manager succeeded Steve Cooper in December 2023.

Asked about that in an interview with Sky Sports he said: "I've got the backing of Nuno and it's fantastic to have a manager that's right behind you. And we've got a great team that creates a lot of chances as we saw tonight. You have just got to be ready to stick them on the back of the net.

"I think we've got to have high expectations, you have got to push as high as possible, keep believing that you can keep doing better and better and I think with what we do and how we've started the season, You can just keep pushing up the league and you have got to take game by game. We've got a great game on Friday to kick start and go again."

Wood will hope to add to his tally against Leicester City - and he also marked this goal by retrieving the ball and stuffing up his top, a none too cryptic hint at a piece of good news on the personal front.

"We found out my wife's pregnant a couple of days ago so that's the announcement to the world and we're having a little baby girl. It's fantastic to hopefully welcome her into the world.

"We've known we needed a home win to get a kick started for the season so thankfully we got it tonight.

"We're looking good but it's just keeping doing the same things that we work on the training pitch and it comes to the fore - and then just seeing it out at the end of the game, which we did.

"We showed tonight, we've got a full squad that we can compete with and then go as high as we can in the league and things like that. We've got great players in the squad."

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