Why Graham Potter is disappointed with Chelsea side as top four hopes fade

Graham Potter has explained why Chelsea left him disappointed after a not good enough performance during their 1-1 draw to Nottingham Forest on New Year’s Day.

Chelsea are starting to slip down the Premier League table, now in ninth, and their Champions League hopes are fading as the games pass by.

After bouncing back with a win over Bournemouth last Tuesday, Chelsea were keen to build some momentum ahead of consecutive games against Manchester City this week.

But they failed to do so despite taking a 16th minute lead against Forest at the City Ground. Serge Aurier punished Chelsea’s lacklustre display and the visitors had to settle for a point against Steve Cooper’s men.

Chelsea were fortunate not to have suffered another defeat on the road,and Potter acknowledged the lack of control in both halves of the game, criticising the lack of intensity from the Blues.

He said: “Overall, when the game was controlled in the first half, I don’t think we did well enough. It certainly wasn’t good enough I would say: we didn’t move the ball fast enough, didn’t have enough moments.

“I think we have to credit the opponent in both halves. In the first, they defended deeper and attacked big spaces. In the second, it became a bit more uncontrolled and we suffered as well.”

Potter wasn’t pleased with how Chelsea handled themselves on the ball after they failed to handle another away atmosphere which the 47-year-old put down to being a general problem for his team.

He concluded: “I don’t think it’s this team, I think it’s generally (struggling away from home with the atmosphere). You have to credit Nottingham Forest. They are here for the first time in a lot of years, so they are celebrating everything, and rightly so.

“While we have our advantages, they use their advantages, which is the environment here and that is absolutely fine.

“We have to deal with that and we didn’t do it as well as we’d like. We controlled it in the first half but in the second half, we didn’t do well enough. It’s hard to do that in the Premier League anyway and that is why I was a little disappointed at half time because I thought we could’ve done more with the ball ourselves.”