Nottingham Forest fought to a 1-1 draw at Chelsea on Sunday despite going down to ten men in the 78th minute after outplaying the hosts in an often frantic Premier League clash that featured numerous chances and a pitchside scuffle had kept in check.

After a sluggish first half in which the visitors’ well-organized defense kept Chelsea at bay, it was Forest who opened the scoring when Nikola Milenkovic hit the back post in the 50th minute from James Ward-Prowse’s classic free-kick and the defender nodded the ball over the goal for Chris Wood to score.

The game got underway and six minutes later Chelsea took advantage of a rare crack in Forest’s extremely disciplined defense when the ever-industrious Noni Madueke latched on to a Cole Palmer ball, shot inside and sent it into the bottom corner.

The result left Chelsea, who had more than 66% possession, in fourth place but fell three points behind third-place Arsenal. Forest is 10. They were reduced to 10 men when Ward-Prowse grabbed the ball on the ground to prevent Nicolas Jackson from running freely towards goal and received a second yellow card.

However, Forest didn’t just sit back and defend, they took the game to Chelsea. Robert Sánchez saved a number of chances early in the game, particularly from substitutes Neco Williams and Jota Silva.

Williams sparked the pitchside confrontation after his tackle on Marc Cucurella catapulted the full-back into the technical area and knocked over his coach Enzo Maresca. Players from both sides and from the bench rushed to the scene, pushing and shoving each other.

The melee and a long injury layoff for Morgan Gibbs-White led to referee Christopher Kavanagh adding 13 minutes of injury time.

Matz Sels kept Forest in the game with impressive saves from Palmer, Christopher Nkunku and Malo Gusto ensuring a breathless end to the game.