Chelsea barely had a touch of the ball before Nottingham Forest had the ball in the back of the net. An excellent cross from the right flank found the head of Taiwo Awoniyi at the far post, and he made no mistake.
The Blues set about overcoming that early setback, but we were not having much joy in breaking down Forest’s massed ranks. The one time we did, Enzo’s placed shot beat the goalkeeper but hit the bottom of the post and bounced away.
That bit of misfortune was compounded immediately as Forest countered and took advantage of some lackadaisical defending to win themselves a penalty. Awoniyi made sure to go down to punish Gusto’s lazy shirt pull, and Igor Jesus blasted home the penalty to give Forest a 2-0 lead inside of 15 minutes.
The visitors were more than happy to sit back and just defend from then on, with Chelsea still not creating much. At one point, Gusto did get hauled down in the area, but somehow that wasn’t given. I guess you can grab and hold as hold as you don’t pull the shirt?
Young Jesse Derry, on his first senior start, was one of our only creative outlets … but his banner day turned to horror when he was stretchered off with a scary-looking head/neck injury just before half time. We did get a penalty out of that incident, but Cole Palmer failed to convert for just the second time in his career.
Our cursed day continued in the second half, with Awoniyi adjudged to be onside when he looked clearly off to make it 3-0 just a few minutes in, and then with Robert Sánchez also having to go off with a head injury just past the hour-mark.
The match was well and truly over by then, but João Pedro did get a goal back … before that was chalked off for a marginal offside. Just absolutely cursed.
JP did end the drought at long last in some tremendous style, with a bicycle kick in stoppage time, but it would prove just a consolation goal.
