Chelsea-Nottingham Forest is a match valid for the 36th day of the Premier League and is played on Saturday at 4 pm: TV, predictions.
For the second day in a row, Chelsea, destined to finish in an anonymous area of the standings after having now failed all the goals that the ambitious London club had set at the beginning of the season, will wear the role of referee in the fight for salvation.
The Blues a week ago broke the impressive string of six consecutive defeats they had suffered between competitions by going on a winning run at home to Bournemouth (1-3) and preventing the Cherries from celebrating keeping their category with three days to spare. A reaction of pride that of Frank Lampard’s team, strongly desired by the coach, who until the challenge with the Rossoneri had always lost since he returned to the bench of the club of which he was the flag for so many years. Chelsea, we said, has nothing left to compete for after finishing even in the right side of the standings. Lampard’s men, however, have one match to spare and, despite the huge gap from tenth-ranked Fulham (6 points) will try to finish at least among the top ten, and then kick off a new “revolution” and archive as quickly as possible a season that to call disastrous would only be an understatement.
Forest on the road is a disaster
One of the first steps is to return to winning even at Stamford Bridge in front of its fans, who have not witnessed a success of their team since more than two months, since the Champions League match that allowed the Blues to overturn Borussia Dortmund in the round of 16.
Nottingham Forest, one of those teams still in serious danger of relegation, is on the scene in the English capital. Steve Cooper’s Tricky Trees, after three terrible months, have managed to momentarily move out of the red zone by winning their last two home games against Brighton (3-1) and Southampton (4-3) but their last away thrashing is dated January 4. No one away from home has done worse than Forest, which away from the City Ground has scraped together the pittance of six points. They are now three points ahead of third-last but in the last three days Nottingham will also have to deal with Arsenal.
The Prediction
Who has more motivation in this match is for sure in Nottingham Forest but the poor performance of Cooper’s team on the road does not allow us to bet with closed eyes on the guests. Better to stay away from the final result: highly likely, instead, that both teams will manage to score on at least one occasion, as has always been the case in the last four matches featuring the Tricky Trees.
The likely lineups for Chelsea-Nottingham Forest
- CHELSEA (4-3-3): Kepa; Chalobah, Thiago Silva, Badiashile, Azpilicueta; Kanté, Enzo Fernandez, Kovacic; Madueke, Havertz, Sterling.
- NOTTINGHAM FOREST (4-3-2-1): Navas; Worrall, Felipe, Niakhaté, Toffolo; Freuler, Mangala, Danilo; Gibbs-White, Johnson; Awoniyi.
POSSIBLE RESULT: 2-1
