The shot-stopper produced a string of fine saves to deny Forest moving nine points clear of the bottom three and instead dragged them back into trouble.

Chris Wood marked his return to the team with a goal as he kept his cool to score from the penalty spot early in the second half after Forest goalkeeper Lee Camp had a rush of blood and upended birthday boy Jon Stead eight yards out.

"It's a massive result," Gerken told Sky Sports 2. "We planned ourselves to get six points this weekend and we're halfway there now, so great result and the lads put in a hell of a shift."

Gerken, who has replaced veteran keeper David James between the sticks for the past couple of games admitted that some of the saves he made against Forest were some of the most important of the season.

"Definitely, I haven't had much of a season so far so I mean, yeah. I'm obviously over the moon with the performance and the result.

"The bloke (James) is a legend ain't he, so to come in and do well so far. But we still have a job to do with four or five more games and we have got to get maximum points from these."

Belief

Meanwhile, Louis Carey, who was making his 620th appearance for the club admitted that it took a lot of character for City to pull off the victory at Forest.

"We've been saying week in and week out in our local press to the fans that if you watch us in training we've got so much belief, character and quality but unfortunately it's not coming out in games at the moment," he said.

"We have got a manager that believes in us and we got a bunch of lads that believe we can get out of trouble and we put in performances like that then I'm sure we will do.

"We train hard and we all prepare hard but it just hasn't come out on matchdays, but hopefully this will give us the confidence now to go on a good run until the end of the season and get us out of trouble."