Forest earn point in frenzied 1-1 draw at Chelsea

Nottingham Forest earned a 1-1 draw at Chelsea on Sunday despite going down to 10 men in the 78th minute, as a fine defensive and goalkeeping display kept the hosts at bay in an at times frenzied Premier League encounter.

After a slow-burn first half, it was Forest who scored first when a classic James Ward-Prowse free kick found defender Nikola Milenkovic at the back post in the 50th minute and the Serbian nodded the ball across goal and Chris Wood tapped it home.

The match sprang into life and six minutes later Chelsea exploited a rare crack in Forest’s highly-disciplined defence when the ever-busy Noni Madueke latched on to a Cole Palmer ball, cut inside and sent it into the bottom corner.Forest were reduced to 10 men when Ward-Prowse grabbed the ball on the ground to stop Nicolas Jackson running free on goal and received a second yellow card.

Matz Sels kept Forest in the game with a series of saves from Palmer and Christopher Nkunku and the visitors also had chances kept out by Robert Sanchez in an end-to-end 13 minutes of added time.