BILLY Davies said he is proud of the improvement he is seeing in his Nottingham Forest side as they approach the critical finale to their Championship season.

But he blasted Kelvin Wilson and revealed that the defender will be hit with a heavy fine for a sending-off the manager believes cost the Reds three points at Bramall Lane on Saturday.

Davies was encouraged by the gutsy performance his players produced in Yorkshire, after Wilson had been red-carded for a head butt – earning himself a three-match ban that ends his campaign, as well as the wrath of the manager.

"Kelvin will be punished. He will be hit heavily in the pocket, he will be fined and his season is over because he has a three-match ban," said Davies. "You can say it is not like him to get involved in things like that but we had warned the players prior to kick-off. We had told them that United would be throwing themselves into tackles, that they would try to provoke a reaction; we had warned them they would have to keep cool heads.

"But Kelvin let the red mist descend and, in my opinion, he cost us a win. I think we would have won if it had been 11 v 11 on the pitch for 90 minutes. His actions have cost us three points."

Davies was full of praise for the rest of his squad, as their hard work ensured that United never really looked like breaking the deadlock.

"We have to remember they had an extra 24 hours to recover, having played on Friday. Then we have to take into account the fact that we were down to ten men for 75 minutes, that we had more than five minutes of added time in each half, that we had lost two of our front-line strikers and our goalkeeper to injury and our left-back to a family issue in the run-up to kick-off.

"We also had to contend with a multi-ball system that works very much in United favour and a fearsome environment created by their passionate supporters.

"But we still managed to secure what was a fantastic result. I was really, really proud of our performance.

"And I believe it was a sign of the continued improvement that we are seeing in this young side and the maturity with which they are starting to perform.

"We are going to need that in the final three matches but, as I keep saying to the players, it is business as usual.

"We have to approach the final three games in the same way as we have approached all the others, we have a job to do and we will be prepared for it. But we are playing with a battling spirit and excellent work rate and that can only be good."

"I have to give credit to the players that came into the side, because they all worked very hard. Credit to the goalkeeper and to the likes of Luke Chambers, Joe Garner and Ian Breckin, because they were all excellent. We knew we would have an aerial bombardment, but we coped with it."