Davies has not yet signed anyone while at Forest

Nottingham Forest manager Billy Davies says his side's small and inexperienced squad is struggling to cope with the fight for Championship survival.

The Reds are only two points clear of the bottom three after the 2-1 reverse at Ipswich Town - their third league defeat in four games.

And Davies told BBC Radio Nottingham: "At the moment we have one or two young players who are out of their depth.

"But that's what we've got and we have to do what we can."

Injuries to several key players including Robert Earnshaw, Paul Anderson, Guy Moussi, Julian Bennett have meant Davies having to play a mixture of fringe players and youngsters.

Adam Newbold, Joe Heath, Brendan Moloney, Matt Thornhill, Joe Garner and Emile Sinclair have all featured in recent weeks and Davies says it is far from ideal.

The Scot believes it is imperative that some new faces arrive at the City Ground to keep the younger players on their toes.

"We need to bring new players in and let them (younger players) know exactly where they stand," he said.

"The only way to do is that by getting a bigger squad and making competition more fierce and by putting more pressure on players.

606: DEBATE The last month or so he's been saying how good the players are & now he's saying half of them are no good! Forest-England

"I feel for the fans at the moment. We have had some very good performances and have some great leaders in the side but we haven't got enough of them.

"We've tried to bring players in but we've had knockbacks left, right and centre. But we are working hard and will continue to do that."

Forest made a slow start to the game at Portman Road and trailed 1-0 at the break.

But despite conceding a second goal on the hour, Davies was impressed with his side's much-improved second-half display.

"Our first 45 minutes was very disappointing," he said.

"We said one or two things at half-time and changed one or two things and the second half was much more positive.

"We probably should have got back in the game in the second half. We looked a lot brighter and it was much better."

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