Billy Davies looks for final push from Nottingham Forest

Billy Davies hopes a "sleeping giant" could be about to stir as he prepares to lead Nottingham Forest into the npower Championship play-offs for the second successive season.

Twelve months after the heartbreak of losing to Blackpool in the semi-finals, the east midlands club are challenging for promotion again. Swansea stand in their way, with the first leg at the City Ground tonight and the return game in south Wales on Monday.

It is 12 years since the two-time European Cup winners graced English football's top flight, where Davies insists Forest belong.

The Scot believes it is time for his players to "come of age" and deliver on the big occasion.

He said: "My motivation - the reason I joined this club, this sleeping giant - is that Forest, clearly, belong in the Premier League. When I spoke to the chairman (Nigel Doughty) about taking this job, we agreed that, over a three-and-a-half-year period, our joint challenge would be to get this club into the Premier League. That is why I came here. I looked forward to that challenge. I have said before that I want to manage at the highest level again. I would be delighted to take this club there, there is no doubt about it.

"I am ambitious and I am driven by the desire to compete at the top, and the current group of players we have here are very similar. Having avoided relegation two seasons ago and having got so close to things last season in the play-offs, it is time for this group of players to come of age.

"Quite simply it is time for them to go and get themselves to the final and then into the Premier League. It is time for that to happen."

Davies is adamant his motivation for success is not personal. The Scot has often said he was not given the opportunity to prove himself in the Premier League, having been sacked by Derby just six months after steering them to promotion via the play-offs.

He insists the driving force behind his appetite to return to the top flight is the simple desire to complete the job he began when he joined Forest in January 2009.

"What happened at Derby is not a motivation," said Davies. "I was very proud of what I did there. I was proud to have taken the club into the Premier League. I was proud to have set a three-year plan and achieved those objectives in just 11 months. I have great memories of the challenge at Derby, even if we know what happened ultimately. There is no agenda. I am driven by getting Forest into the Premier League."