Serge Aurier's leveler stuns Chelsea in New Year's Day stalemate

Serge Aurier volleyed home the leveler against Chelsea on Sunday. The game ended 1-1 at the City Ground Stadium. (Photo credit: Premierleague.com)

It didn’t go according to plan for Chelsea and Graham Potter on New Year’s Day and you’d wonder where the Blues go from here after dropping points at bottom club Nottingham Forest.

It was going to be a matter of how many goals and not a question of if they would win but Forest had other ideas which didn’t come to life until the second half. The Chelsea manager Graham Potter returned with the same team as the one that beat Bournemouth while Steve Cooper made on change.

Chelsea dominated the opening exchange and rightly took the lead when Willy Boly fumbled a cross to his crossbar and Raheem Sterling fired home from the rebound; it was a welcome reprieve for the former Manchester City forward.

Nottingham Forest offered absolutely nothing in the first half of the game, fans of the visitors must have gone to bed knowing they would wake up to a good number of goals but football as always comes up to shock us many times.

Forest made no changes at halftime but Cooper must have passed his message the best way possible and it reflected in how they approached the second half. Forest probed and probed until the goal came from an unlikely source, Serge Aurier.

For all their worth, Chelsea didn’t have a single effort on goal in the second half and the implication of that was a continuous belief in the hosts as they tried to search for the winner; Chelsea must be the happier side for the draw and that is alarming for a side as expensive as Potter’s.

Nottingham Forest now sits in 18^th on the log and that is just a point from safety, you can’t stop them from believing now. The Blues sit three points off the top six and seven points off the top four. They need to work on that before considering a push for the title as they sit eighteen points off the Gunners.