Nottingham Forest boss Aitor Karanka was frustrated with his side's performance against Birmingham City on Saturday after they were forced to come from two goals down to nick a point, reported the club's official website.

Joe Lolley came to the rescue of the home side, scoring a scorching equaliser just seconds after coming off the bench before his stinging long shot led to Daryl Murphy's equaliser.

"We didn't play in our style, we played in a way that suited them much better than us and they were the better team," Karanka told the club's official website after the game.

"Now we have to keep learning and improving because although some people might be happy that we equalised late on, it is not enough.

"We didn't just start the game poorly, we played badly for 75 minutes. You have to play at 150% in this league to win games and so now we need to go away and work out why everything was so poor for the first 75 minutes of this game."

Lukasz Jutkiewicz gave the away side the lead just after 20 minutes, brilliantly looping a header back across goal and past Costel Pantillimon.

Che Adams doubled the lead and looked to have secured all three points in the 71st minute as his shot made it 2-0 via the help of a deflection.

But the game swung on the introduction of Forest winger Lolley who entered the play on the 75th minute and just seconds later had lashed home a brilliant strike to get Forest back into the game.

It was the 26-year-old's shot that was too hot to handle for Lee Camp in the Birmingham goal three minutes from time as well and Murphy was there to notch his second of the season to level the scores.

The verdict

Karanka is spot on and these high standards will stand Forest in very good stead.

Had the Spaniard come out and simply praised the spirit of his side it would have been more worrying.

Yes, it would have sounded nice at the time but they are not the words of a manager who will take serious action on the training ground. Karanka's words are.