{"id":3671,"date":"2026-05-04T06:28:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=3671"},"modified":"2026-05-04T06:28:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:28:24","slug":"prediction-team-news-line-ups-and-odds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=3671","title":{"rendered":"Prediction, team news, line-ups and odds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div><!-- Article Start --><\/p>\n<p>They\u2019ve gone through plenty of candidates but Forest now seem to have landed on the ideal boss in Vitor Pereira. It was a sticky start for the Portuguese but he\u2019s guided his team to an unbeaten nine-match run in all competitions, six of those wins.<\/p>\n<p>And what a fortnight it\u2019s been. Forest have crushed Burnley (4-1 at home) and Sunderland (5-0 away!) to ease their relegation fears while they\u2019ve beaten Porto to reach the Europa League semi-finals where they\u2019ve secured a lead over Aston Villa after a 1-0 success at the City Ground on Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea\u2019s disastrous run of seven defeats out of eight saw the end of Liam Rosenior\u2019s brief spell in charge but his exit prompted an immediate upturn in fortunes (and effort?) as they beat Leeds at Wembley to set up an FA Cup final showdown with Manchester City.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea v Nottingham Forest kick-off time<\/h2>\n<p>Chelsea v Nottingham Forest kicks off at 3pm BST on Monday, May 4 at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea v Nottingham Forest how to watch<\/h2>\n<p>The game will be shown live in the UK on Sky Sports Premier League and Sky Sports Main Event. Coverage begins at 2pm.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea team news<\/h2>\n<p>After returning to team training, skipper Reece James (hamstring) and centre-back Levi Colwill (knee) could be part of the Chelsea squad again.<\/p>\n<h2>Nottingham Forest team news<\/h2>\n<p>Murillo, Jair Cunha, Dan Ndoye and Ibrahim Sangare all missed the Europa League first leg win over Aston Villa and will need to be assessed nearer kick-off.<\/p>\n<p>Callum Hudson-Odoi has already been ruled out for the rest of the campaign.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea v Nottingham Forest odds<\/h2>\n<p>Chelsea are 4\/6 to record their first Premier League win since March 4. They\u2019ve lost five top-flight games on the spin since then.<\/p>\n<p>Forest are 4\/1 to extend the hosts\u2019 losing streak in the league to six while The Draw is 3\/1.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea are 20\/1 to produce a late rally and grab a top five finish while it\u2019s also 20\/1 that Forest suffer relegation.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea v Nottingham Forest prediction<\/h2>\n<p>Chelsea would be far from the first football team in history to suddenly come to life again after a manager they weren\u2019t having was sent on his way.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s perhaps a cynical take but one with merit after they clearly raised their levels to win last weekend\u2019s FA Cup semi-final with in-form Leeds.<\/p>\n<p>This is their first Premier League game since Liam Rosenoir\u2019s departure but let\u2019s not forget that the Blues have struggled at Stamford Bridge all season. Their tally of six home wins is only one more than fourth-bottom West Ham have managed.<\/p>\n<p>Forest definitely have an eye on the Europa League second leg but they can\u2019t quite count their chickens yet when it comes to avoiding the drop.<\/p>\n<p>Encouragingly for Pereira\u2019s men, Stamford Bridge has been a happy hunting ground. They\u2019ve lost just two of their eight Premier League away games against Chelsea and from their last three visits, Forest have managed a win and two draws.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, head to the Double Chance market and back Forest-Draw at 5\/4. It makes sense to have both results running for us given that their six-match unbeaten run in the Premier League comprises an equal split of three wins and three draws.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-864019 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/d2x51gyc4ptf2q.cloudfront.net\/content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/12110233\/Please-Gamble-Responsibly.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1600\" height=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p><!-- Article End --><\/div>\n<p><script>\n        !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n        {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n        n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n        if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n        n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n        t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);\n        s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n        'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n        fbq('init', '1399787394855675');\n        fbq('track', 'PageView');\n    <\/script><script>\n        !function(e,n,t){var o=e.getElementsByTagName(n)(0);e.getElementById\n    <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They\u2019ve gone through plenty of candidates but Forest now seem to have landed on the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}