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Nuno Espirito Santo praised his Nottingham Forest side for “finding the details” to beat Southampton 1-0 at St Mary’s for their first win of the season.

A game of few chances was decided in the 70th minute by Morgan Gibbs-White, who in a rare moment of precision took advantage of a failed Saints attempt to clear a corner, firing home with his second attempt after his initial header had cleared off the line.

Forest looked set to score a second goal sooner than Southampton did to hit back, only goalkeeper Alex McCarthy stood between the visitors and a more convincing victory. The keeper held firm to save from Neco Williams before showing brilliant reach to beat Callum Hudson-Odoi’s curling drive.

“I think we played a good game,” Santo said. “We dominated, controlled the tempo of the game, created situations. It’s always difficult to play out.

“This is the first step towards improvement, but overall a very good performance. In the second half there was a period where we couldn’t push for 10 or 15 minutes. That was really tough.

“We always try to find details that we can see and correct, knowing that we still had 45 minutes to go after the first half.

“We ask a lot of the players, demand a lot from them. It has slowly become positive in that direction.”

Forest had dominated the first half without finding a way out. Defender Nikola Milenkovic should have marked his debut with a goal, arriving in the six-yard box to meet Chris Wood’s cross but somehow managing to send the ball wide of an open goal.

Ibrahim Sangare saved McCarthy with his fingertips from 30 yards and the visitors nearly had the best of luck when Saints defender Taylor Harwood-Bellis played a miscued back pass that deceived his keeper and went just wide.

In addition to Milenkovic, Santo also gave Elliot Anderson his debut, the midfielder who was acquired from Newcastle this summer.

“I think they (the debutants) played a good game,” Santo said. “The quality they have, the players we brought in, we believe in them. I think it was a positive game from them.

“What we want is to know that we have solutions when we have the whole selection.”

Saints manager Russell Martin, who saw his side record just one shot on target in their first top-flight home game in 15 months, reflected on a game that was torn against him by their own defensive failings.

“We conceded a goal after a crappy set-piece,” he said. “We shouldn’t have given the ball away for the corner in the first place. We had a moment to get the ball at a time when we were so strong.

“We really started to give them problems. Then we gave them a corner, we had a chance to clean it up and we didn’t. I don’t know what happens next, but it’s not good enough. It makes me angry.”