Roberto Di Matteo dismissed suggestions he was fortunate to record his first league victory as West Brom manager at Nottingham Forest – the Italian instead insisting it was Albion’s much-improved defence that won them the game.

The Coca-Cola Championship promotion favourites staged something of a smash and grab at the City Ground, returning to the Black Country with all three points courtesy of Wes Morgan’s unfortunate own goal.

After Chris Brunt had struck a post with a free-kick in the fourth minute, West Brom were on the back foot for the rest of the game as Forest peppered Scott Carson’s goal with wave after wave of attack.

Dele Adebola missed two glorious chances and had a goal disallowed before Carson produced a superb save to keep out Dexter Blackstock’s header.

Robert Earnshaw then let Albion off the hook again by firing his 75th-minute penalty wide after he had been brought down in the area by Shelton Martis.

But, when asked if he thought West Brom had been fortunate, Di Matteo said: “One-nil, three points. I think the only bit of luck was with the missed penalty. Apart from that I thought we did really well.

“Considering we were playing away against a very good Forest team, we are coming away with a clean sheet and we are coming away with three points.

“I would have liked to kill the game off, we had one or two chances to do that and maybe could’ve done a bit better, but we defended really well.

“Improving our defending is a process. It’s going to take a little while. We’ve worked on the defence. It was one of the points from last year where we struggled. I look at the whole game and I think we controlled them quite well and took our chance to win the game.”

Forest boss Billy Davies felt luck was not with his side but was encouraged by the performance.

West Brom’s 52nd-minute winner was cruel on the Reds. Jonathan Greening’s cross from the left side looked like it would be turned home by Luke Moore but the Albion striker completely mistimed his header and the ball went beyond him, striking the hapless Morgan on the leg and rolling beyond stranded keeper Lee Camp.

Davies said: “It was just one of those days. There are plenty of positives to take from the game.

“I’m disappointed to lose, but when luck goes against you what can you do?”

FOREST (4-4-2): Camp, Gunter, Morgan, Lynch, Cohen, Anderson, Majewski, McKenna, Tyson, Garner, Adebola. Subs: Smith (gk), McGugan, Earnshaw, McGoldrick, Davies, Blackstock, Mitchell.

ALBION (4-4-1-1): Carson, Zuiverloon, Martis, Olsson, Mattock, Brunt, Greening, Mulumbu, Koren, Dorrans, Moore.