Nottingham Forest striker Dexter Blackstock has expressed hope that manager Dougie Freedman will be given time to bring stability to the club.

The Scot took charge of the Reds at the beginning of February in the wake of Stuart Pearce's departure, becoming the club's sixth full-time manager in three years.

Blackstock says that Forest must follow the examples set by teams challenging at the top of the Championship by giving Freedman the opportunity to implement his ideas and playing style.

"If you look at the teams who are at the top end of the Championship now, at the likes of Bournemouth, Watford, Ipswich – these are not teams who have been relegated from the Premier League, they are teams who have been in this division a while," Blackstock told the Nottingham Post.

"They have stuck with their manager and they have a way of playing as a result. For us, now, we need to start looking at next season. All those teams towards the top of the table have had their manager in place for a year or more at least. And all the players at those clubs have brought into what their manager wants from them.

"You cannot just get a manager and throw a squad together. You need an identity at a club and it feels as though the gaffer has already done that for us. In a short space of time, he has had that impact. But there needs to be a rigidity and certainty to it. We need to know, as a club, that he is going to be in charge next season and that we are going to do things in a certain way."

Forest, who head to Brentford today, are ninth in the table.