Chelsea 2-2 Nottingham Forest (Sterling 51′, 58’| Awoniyi 13′, 62′)
STAMFORD BRIDGE — A wholly stoppable force met an easily movable object in west London, and unsurprisingly neither prevailed. This was scrappy and fraught and frantic, fuelled by desperation on one side and an all-pervading apathy on the other.
Chelsea are now without a win in seven home games, while Forest are winless in eight on the road. Neither will be entirely happy with the result, yet both will be slightly relieved to end their respective dire sequences of defeats.
Steve Cooper’s side are now one point closer to survival and three points clear of the relegation zone, buoyed here by Taiwo Awoniyi’s second brace in two Premier League games. Like so many of Forest’s new seemingly stable core, Awoniyi has come good at the latest possible opportunity, yet his tardiness will scarcely matter if the City Ground can still host top-flight football into 2024.
Awoniyi’s first took advantage of Chelsea’s complacency and continued uncertainty, with Frank Lampard making five changes from the only win of his second tenure. Edouard Mendy replaced Kepa Arrizabalaga, and the Senegalese was caught in no man’s land on his first start since November 2022, allowing Awoniyi to bully both Thiago Silva and Benoit Badiashile, and loop his header over the stranded Mendy.
As was the case against Brentford two weeks ago, the visitors forfeited a lead they’d hard earned, but this time they left enough time to come back. Just four minutes after Raheem Sterling’s rapid-fire brace, Awoniyi latched onto Moussa Niakhate’s cushioned volley to ensure a parity which remained unbroken.
For Chelsea, this was a futile result for a side already in limbo. Throughout a drab, dreary afternoon in west London, Lampard wandered the touchline like he was waiting for a delayed bus, pacing without purpose but nervous to know when he’d be getting home. Yet as is often said about buses, you wait and wait and wait, then two come along at once.
Having not scored a Premier League goal since the reverse fixture on New Year’s Day, Sterling may even be rooting for Forest’s survival, in a can-we-play-you-every-week sense. For all but two touches, the England winger was as absent as he has been of late, yet those two touches justified what appeared to be his strange selection over a fast-improving Mykhailo Mudryk.
Sterling’s second was a curling effort that belied his long-standing confidence crisis, buoyed by his simple, sidefooted open. That first, ricocheting in off the head of Ryan Yates, was borne of a mazy run by Trevoh Chalobah, continuing to provide a far stronger alternative to Reece James than Cesar Azpilicueta is able to.
Chalobah’s powerful runs and pinpoints crosses may have played him back into Chelsea’s plans for next season when he appeared all but sold, yet this of course means something will have to give elsewhere.
On the other side of the Blue defence, Lewis Hall’s seventh Premier League appearance was perhaps his most convincing, demonstrating a creative mind and left foot of supreme quality. His fizzing, snorting cross on the half-hour mark created Chelsea’s best chance of the first-half, allowing Joao Felix to oh-so-nearly glance a header past Keylor Navas.
With Ben Chilwell and Marc Cucurella both currently injured, Hall proved himself a more-than-capable deputy for Chilwell and potentially even an improvement to Cucurella.
Yet the fact two academy products, one out of position, temporarily solved Chelsea’s full-back crisis perfectly demonstrated the failure of Boehly’s “magpie” transfer philosophy, accumulating shiny new toys with reckless abandon.
The same can largely be said of Forest, and it is testament to Steve Cooper’s managerial gifts that he may have learned to bend chaos to his will at just the right moment. Despite a similarly bloated squad, the visiting side made just one change for the fourth consecutive game, relying on the same core which has now earned them two wins and a draw in their last four.
Captain Joe Worrall replaced top scorer Brennan Johnson, which appeared a strange decision on the surface, yet as is always the case with Cooper, there was method to the madness.
Worrall’s return did not only provide another clear voice and cool head at the back, but all eleven of Johnson’s league goals and assists this season have come against the bottom eight sides. He is undoubtedly a bright young talent, Cooper prioritised functionality over flair with Forest’s Premier League status on the line. He was vindicated.
The visiting cohort long outlasted the home fans after the final whistle, with a subdued Stamford Bridge crowd leaving as quietly as they came. Forest provided this tie with both noise and meaning, yet once more they were just slightly too easily moved, a tad too simply stopped. This was both one point gained and two lost, and both could still play a fundamental role in shaping Forest’s future.
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