Having been thrust into two games in the space of four days after taking over from Sean O'Driscoll, Alex McLeish has used his first bit of breathing space to appoint Peter Grant as his assistant manager.
Grant worked alongside McLeish at Birmingham and Aston Villa and comes into a reshuffled backroom team with coach Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink leaving the club.
The managerial team will be without Adlene Guedioura for the next few weeks after he linked up with the Algerian squad as they prepare for the African Cup of Nations and cannot call on striker Marcus Tudgay either. His loan spell with Barnsley has been cut short after he suffered a broken collarbone in their game against Blackburn on Saturday.
The same opponents saw off Forest on New Year's Day in a game which McLeish felt turned on a 'complete fluke' of a goal by Ruben Rochina which opened the scoring for Blackburn.
"You want a bit of luck like that yourself," he said. "That first goal was a game changer."