Nottingham Forest 0, Albion 0

Albion are not rubbish because they could not beat beleaguered Blackpool at the Amex.

And they are not suddenly promotion candidates because they held free-scoring former Championship leaders Nottingham Forest.

The last two results have been exactly the same, the reaction of supporters to them will have been rather different.

Nothing has changed, in spite of the contrasting emotions and interpretations.

Albion are still an early work in progress under Sami Hyypia.

Their defending as a team has improved appreciably since the naive 3-2 defeat at Brentford five games ago.

Similar improvement is required in the final third if they are going to start climbing the table.

For that to happen they need to turn draws and narrow defeats into victories.

They have gone 272 minutes without conceding a goal in all competitions, 300 minutes without scoring in the Championship.

That, in a nutshell, is where they are at this embryonic stage of their development under Hyypia.

Good enough to be competitive and make it difficult for the opposition, not good enough yet to capitalise on opportunities to hurt them.

The strikers are not purely to blame, although the collective lack of league goals is a worry.

The only one the front men have scored between them is Craig Mackail-Smith's opener against Bolton at the Amex last month in the last league victory.

The shortcoming against Forest was the chances Albion had to make chances.

Several times Hyypia or his assistant Nathan Jones turned away in anguish at a lack of precision with the final delivery into the box. It was a nearly performance in an attacking sense.

They would have been 1-0 up on the break early on if Adrian Colunga had found the supporting Jake Forster-Caskey, unmarked inside the box.

Joe Bennett, venturing forward to good effect, could not quite find the right cross for Mackail-Smith on a couple of occasions.

When there was a chance to shoot Albion either failed to hit the target or to make Forest keeper Karl Darlow work hard enough.

Colunga gave Darlow a routine save when well-placed.

Forster-Caskey volleyed against the bar from point blank range just as an offside flag was raised to redeem him, Mackail-Smith fired wide from a good position in the closing stages.

In a division of such fine margins it is the attention to finishing detail which can make such a difference.

The team selected by Hyypia did not lack ambition. Colunga and Mackail-Smith were accompanied in a front three by Kazenga LuaLua, handed the rarity of successive starts.

The bit Albion are getting right is their collective defending, which always starts from the front. Colunga and LuaLua both tracked back effectively down the flanks when required.

Forest and Britt Assombalonga have been scoring goals for fun this season, 20 in their first nine games.

Becoming the first side to keep a clean sheet at the City Ground since the end of March is no mean feat.

Apart from a 25-minute spell in a first half Hyypia was unhappy with, complaining that his side lacked urgency and tempo at both ends of the pitch, Forest were rendered impotent.

Assombalonga, the Championship's leading marksman, was well shackled by Gordon Greer and Lewis Dunk.

David Stockdale was only called into meaningful action once, when a long range effort by Robert Tesche threatened to loop in via a deflection off Danny Holla.

The best chance for Forest fell to Michael Mancienne in injury time, the captain heading down and over from a corner.

That would have been cruel, as Albion were the better side throughout the second half, but it was another reminder of the wafer-thin dividing line at this level between a commendable draw and a frustrating defeat.

Greer said: "We defended well all over the pitch and I thought we were unlucky not to get the result.

"We're working really hard in training and sometimes you need to make mistakes to learn. As a team we've made a couple of mistakes and we're learning.

"We've got a great, honest group of lads who are working hard for each other and give it our all.

"I really think we should be kicking on now. When we have got the ball we look really dangerous at times."

For Albion to kick on they need to maintain their compact defending and convert promising possession into chances and goals.