Nottingham Forest vs Chelsea Betting Preview

We’ve arrived at the final game of the Premier League season and what a strange old year it’s been. With the title decided and the relegation spots confirmed, all that’s left is to determine who will be qualifying for Europe, and what competition they’ll be playing in. Today, we’ll be taking a look at arguably the most important game in that race as Nottingham Forest prepare to play host to Chelsea.

Nuno Espirito Santo deserves heavy, heavy praise for the way in which he’s been able to turn things around at the City Ground. We’re at the point now where if they win this game, and results go their way, they will be playing Champions League football from the autumn onwards. That is absolutely insane, and it’s a testament to the momentum they’ve built for themselves since August.

On the flip side, you’ve got Chelsea, who will also have one eye on the Conference League final, which takes place just a matter of days after their trip to the East Midlands. They finally seem to have some kind of stability under their belt with Enzo Maresca at the helm, but they’ve certainly fallen off a little bit in recent months – raising eyebrows about what the summer and beyond could hold.

In terms of this game itself, though, it feels like the football gods have set it up perfectly for us. These two both want to dine at European football’s top table and they have to beat one another in order to make it happen. Sure, Aston Villa will still have a thing or two to say about it, but this is the kind of one-off game that we all hope for when we get to the final day.

So whether you’re looking for football betting online or you just want to know a bit more about the game and how it could play out, we’re here to run through what we expect to happen.

In terms of the pace of this game, we think it could be one of the most exciting encounters of the season. The crowd are going to be absolutely on fire for Forest from the first minute until the very last, and we anticipate that Chelsea will start to feel that pressure early doors.

We do, however, also think they’ll be lethal on the counter, which is why we think they’ll take the lead. Thankfully for the hosts, they have a parade of dynamic options in the final third that will be able to fire them back into the game, setting us up for a second half that is going to be full of back and forth drama.

If we had to put money on it, we’d say that Forest will be the ones who edge their noses in front towards the end of the match, and from there, they’ll pick up their most important win of the season. Whether or not it is enough to lift them into the Champions League spots will be answered by what happens across the country.

Official prediction: Nottingham Forest 2-1 Chelsea