Chelsea’s season plunged to a dispiriting new low as Nottingham Forest won 3-1 at Stamford Bridge to condemn them to a sixth consecutive Premier League defeat.<\/p>\n
It had already been the club\u2019s worst run of league form since 1912 but just when it looked like there were no fresh crises left to visit them, Forest\u2019s second-string XI arrived in west London and blitzed Chelsea with two goals by Taiwo Awoniyi \u2013 the first after 98 seconds \u2013 and a penalty from Igor Jesus, as Vitor Pereira\u2019s side moved six points clear of the relegation zone.<\/p>\n
The Blues\u2019 five-game scoring drought had almost reached six, far beyond the point of credibility, by the time Joao Pedro\u2019s stoppage-time overhead kick gave them their first league goal since March 4.<\/p>\n
The ridiculousness of that run had earlier been laid bare when Cole Palmer had a first-half penalty saved by stand-in goalkeeper Matz Sels.<\/p>\n
Visiting supporters in the Shed End could have been forgiven for barely recognising their team. The seven outfield players brought in by Pereira, a move made doubtless with Thursday\u2019s Europa League semi-final second leg in mind, had 11 league starts this season between them, but it was Chelsea who appeared like strangers to one another.<\/p>\n
Interim head coach Calum McFarlane had seen his hands virtually tied by late injuries to Pedro Neto and Alejandro Garnacho, meaning a first Premier League start for 18-year-old Jesse Derry. As if things could get no worse, the teenager required oxygen and was stretchered off with a serious head injury late in the first half after colliding with Forest\u2019s Zach Abbott.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea’s season plunged to a dispiriting new low as Nottingham Forest won 3-1 at Stamford Bridge to condemn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-432101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}