Aitor Karanka breathed a huge sigh of relief after seeing his Nottingham Forest side hang on to beat Stoke 3-2 in a pulsating Carabao Cup third-round encounter.
Forest were 3-0 up after 50 minutes thanks to goals from Simon Osborn, Daryl Murphy and Joe Lolley, but Potters substitute Benik Afobe pulled a goal back before the Reds were reduced to 10 men when Diogo Goncalves was sent off for a foul on Tom Edwards.
Saido Berahino set up a frantic last few minutes with a second Stoke goal and then missed a sitter, with Forest eventually riding out the storm to clinch their first fourth-round berth since 2004.
"I am really pleased and proud of them, especially with the spirit and effort," revealed Karanka, who made eight changes to the side that beat Rotherham on Saturday. "They were fighting until the end for every single ball.
"We could have scored the fourth and the fifth before they scored their first and finished the game off. But in football you cannot rest. They put their better players on the pitch and played with a real intensity.
"We had chances and if you don't put them away and your opponents have quality players like Tom Ince, Benik Afobe, Bojan and Charlie Adam, then you will have problems."
Karanka had no issues with Goncalves' red card, despite referee Darren England looking as though he had been influenced in his decision by the Stoke coaching staff.
"The fourth official said it was a clear foul and if he said it was clear then I have to accept it," he added. "I don't think the Stoke bench had anything to do with it."
Stoke boss Gary Rowett, who selected just Bruno Martins Indi from the team that lost to Blackburn, bemoaned the fact his side only started playing once they went 3-0 down.
"I am really disappointed," said Rowett. "For 15-20 minutes we actually looked quite bright, but then we conceded a really poor goal. We have control of the ball and we end up dropping it onto the Forest player's knee, he knows nothing about it and lo and behold it ends up in our net. It was tough to take.
"We then showed a lack of courage, we stopped trying to pass the ball and allowed Forest to dictate the play without creating many opportunities. And then we let in another poor goal and in the second half, we concede another bad one.
"After that, the game completely changes – we had a good opportunity, we take it thanks to a good finish from Benik and we then made it incredibly tough for Forest.
"We scored a second, hit the bar and missed a sitter, which Saido has to score. Again we could have got something out of the game where we had given ourselves a lot to do.
"I can talk about the courage we showed, the attitude, but I can also talk about the fact we shouldn't do that as should not be 3-0 down in the first place."
