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It felt ominous for Ange Postecoglou that Evangelos Marinakis was nowhere to be seen as Nottingham team crumbled, Reece James adding Chelsea’s third goal to nil with six minutes of regular time to play – and so it proved when the Australian was dismissed shortly after the final whistle.
Marinakis had long since vacated his seat in the directors’ box. He did so around 15 minutes into the second half, with Chelsea 2-0 up after goals from Pedro Neto and Josh Acheampong, things threatening to turn ugly from a Forest perspective.
Marinakis flew in from Greece on Friday hoping to witness a first win since appointing Postecoglou and evidence of progress but got neither.
For Enzo Maresca, constrained up in the stands and serving a touchline ban, this was a far happier afternoon, the only sour notes Malo Gusto’s second yellow card late on and Robert Sánchez’s booking for time-wasting. For Forest, who will be in charge when Porto visit in the Europa League on Thursday?
“How did we get to this point?” Postecoglou found himself asking on the eve of this fixture of the endgame atmosphere surrounding just his fifth league fixture in charge. The reality is there was simply no hiding place after extending his winless run to eight matches in all competitions.
The Australian tentatively applauded all sides of the stadium as he emerged before kick-off, acutely aware of the value of a first victory over Chelsea, having lost all four matches against them with Tottenham. Postecoglou recognised the need to give the supporters something to build energy, as he put it.
Few would have predicted Taiwo Awoniyi leading the line on his first start since April and first appearance since he was placed into an induced coma and required emergency abdominal surgery after colliding with a post here against Leicester in May.
It quickly became clear that Forest planned to play direct to Awoniyi, one of five changes from Forest’s defeat at Newcastle, and it was largely working until the striker was replaced at the interval by Igor Jesus. Awoniyi fluffed a chance inside 49 seconds, sending a daisy-cutter away from goal and was involved in the buildup when Elliot Anderson lost his footing at the crucial moment after electing to chop inside Acheampong.
There were other chances Postecoglou could point to across a generally encouraging first half, chiefly Morgan Gibbs-White flashing wide after Roméo Lavia failed to trap a square pass. Even trailing 2-0 in the second half, Neco Williams volleyed over unmarked on the edge of the Chelsea six-yard box on the hour and 10 minutes later, Igor Jesus’s effort clanged the bar and post.
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With the heat on Postecoglou, it was easy to overlook quite how poor Chelsea had been in the first half and Maresca made a triple substitution at the interval, Moisés Caicedo, Marc Guiu and Jamie Gittens replacing Lavia, Alejandro Garnacho and Andrey Santos, a former Forest loanee.
Three minutes into the second half that Forest promise evaporated. Neto whizzed down the left flank, past Williams, and sent a delicious cross into the box. Murillo got sucked towards Guiu, who had Nikola Milenkovic for company, and an unmarked Acheampong headed past Matz Sels.
Chelsea’s opener stemmed from the leftovers of a free-kick and the second from one on the edge of the D, Neto wellying a strike past an unsighted Sels in the Forest goal. Forest’s set-piece vulnerability was again apparent when James capped victory, drilling in after a corner, to leave Postecoglou with nowhere to go.
