Nottingham Forest target FA Cup upset at Chelsea

Nottingham Forest fans will be hopeful of causing an FA Cup upset on Sunday at Stamford Bridge.

The two sides are no stranger to each other having met at Stamford Bridge in cup competitions four times since January 2000.

Forest have not been able to cause an upset in any of those previous visits to the capital; conceding 12 goals and scoring once.

Their most recent visit to Stamford Bridge, in January 2019, ended with a 2-0 victory for the Blues; meanwhile, Forest were beaten heavily 5-1 in September 2017.

Sabri Lamouchi will, however, rue the break from Sky Bet Championship football having picked up three back-to-back victories against Hull, Wigan and Blackburn in recent weeks.

Chelsea, meanwhile, will see it as an opportune moment to hand minutes to players on the fringe of the first team; Frank Lampard’s side have proved inconsistent in recent weeks with four wins, one draw and three losses since the start of December.

Team news

Chelsea

The Blues could use this fixture to re-integrate Marcos Alonso. He has been on the physio bench with a buttock injury.

Olivier Giroud (ankle), Marco van Ginkel (knee), Ruben Loftus-Cheek (calf) and Fikayo Tomori (unknown) are all unlikely to feature.

Nottingham Forest

Yuri Ribeiro (knee) could face a late-race to make the squad having been sidelined since November; defender Chema was forced off in the victory over Blackburn Rovers.

From the dug-outs

With Chelsea boss Frank Lampard suffering from illness, assistant Jody Morris took the pre-match media duties.

He said: “It’s a prestigious competition. A balancing act with so many games but the manager will pick a team that can win the game.

“Within our dressing room, there’s enough people who value the FA Cup. It’s a competition well known across the world. Emphasis won’t be diluted in our dressing room.”

Forest boss Sabri Lamouchi is looking forward to visiting Stamford Bridge but has told his players to “enjoy” themselves as they travel with “nothing to lose”

He said: “We can’t compete at the same level as them but it is one game away from home. We must try, we must play, we must enjoy, fight, run altogether because it will be a very tough game.

“I would be happy with a draw, but our goal is not to win the FA Cup. We want to go there, disturb them and try to play our game with a good performance.

“We have nothing to lose, we just want to try and enjoy it.”