\n<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s interim head coach, Calum McFarlane, admitted the opening 15 minutes of his side\u2019s home defeat by Nottingham Forest were \u201cnot acceptable\u201d as Chelsea lost a sixth consecutive Premier League match for the first time since 1993.<\/p>\n
A second-minute header from Taiwo Awoniyi was followed by an Igor Jesus penalty in the 15th minute to leave V\u00edtor Pereira\u2019s second-string side able to keep their hosts at arm\u2019s length throughout the contest. Awoniyi\u2019s second later in the game ultimately sealed three crucial points for Forest in their battle against relegation.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought the first 15 minutes we were nowhere near the level we needed to be,\u201d McFarlane said. \u201cThe early goal was a bit of a sucker punch. We know that they like to cross to the back post. We know that the No 9 likes to peel to the back post. We should defend that moment better.\u201d<\/p>\n Chelsea had opportunities, with Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez hitting a post, Cole Palmer missing a penalty and Jo\u00e3o Pedro having a goal ruled out for offside before the Brazilian finally scored a spectacular scissor kick late on. \u201cWe had our moments,\u201d said McFarlane. \u201cWhen you start that badly, you need those moments to go your way, to give you a chance to fight back into the game. But ultimately, the first 15 minutes was not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n Chelsea are 10 points off the fifth place that would guarantee Champions League football with only nine points to play for. Asked if Chelsea\u2019s players would be sufficiently motivated to pursue qualification for the Europa or Conference League, McFarlane said: \u201cI know the group. I\u2019ve known them for a little while now. They are driven. They want what\u2019s best for themselves. They want what\u2019s best for this club. We\u2019re going to do everything we can to try to win every single game we can from now to the end of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n Pereira can now focus on a Europa League semi-final second leg against Aston Villa, though the Forest manager has concerns over Morgan Gibbs-White, who was forced to leave the field after sustaining a heavy cut after entering play as a substitute.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has a deep cut and we\u2019ll see but Gibbs-White is a fighter,\u201d Pereira said. \u201cI hope our medical department can do magic to put him in the right condition, because he is important for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chelsea\u2019s interim head coach, Calum McFarlane, admitted the opening 15 minutes of his side\u2019s home…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3969","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\/3969","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=3969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}