Sabri Lamouchi felt Nottingham Forest deserved three points as they defeated Fulham 2-1 at Craven Cottage.
Two goals by Lewis Grabban extended their unbeaten run of games to four, ending a run of three straight wins for the hosts.
Despite a late effort by Aleksandar Mitrovic, Forest held on and head coach Lamouchi was pleased with the victory.
He said: “My feeling tonight is happy because it’s a great result. A fantastic performance by the team. They respect the plan, they play compact.
“We started in the right way, we disturbed them a lot and we fight until the end. With a lot of minutes more, with four or five attackers, it was just defending.
“Maybe we can score more, one at least, so we can be more quiet and more easy.
“It was not easy because they played very wide, with Ivan Cavaleiro one side and Anthony Knockaert on the other, with Aboubakar Kamara and Mitrovic in the middle.
“They did a great, great job, and maybe with luck sometimes we defended very well. I think they deserve this victory, for the spirit, for the plan, for the character, for the style, for the goals.”
Forest took the lead after four minutes when Jack Robinson took the ball on the left flank and sent his delivery into the box for Grabban to connect first time past Marcus Bettinelli.
Joe Bryan fired to the left of the goal after 25 minutes, while keeper Brice Samba held onto a 34th-minute effort by Mitrovic.
Grabban was denied a second before the interval when Bettinelli foiled him with a block.
Knockaert was matched again by the Forest keeper after 53 minutes when his header was tipped away at full length.
Although the visitors were on the backfoot, they managed to double their advantage just after the hour mark.
Grabban picked up a loose ball outside the area and was able to take advantage of some slack defending to fire home.
Samba was called into action again after 69 minutes with a great reaction save after a shot by Steven Sessegnon was deflected off a defender.
Mitrovic gave Fulham late hope after putting his effort to the left of Samba with 84 minutes gone but despite eight minutes of injury time, Forest held on.
Fulham manager Scott Parker felt his side paid for conceding early.
He said: “I felt we controlled the game, we were in control – we started slowly. I was disappointed at the way we started the game.
“When they scored early, it put us on the back foot. Saying that after that we looked a real threat.
“The first 10 to 15 minutes we were on the back foot a little bit. It was a game of football, and on another day we control it.
“I always felt comfortable in the way we were playing, certainly in possession. I felt like we played pretty well.
“I include the second half, the second goal comes from a mistake by us, which is one of those things.
“I made the changes tactically, we went to a back three to try and get some more players further up the field.
“I take responsibility for that, that is the way I want us to play and sometimes that can happen.”
