Chelsea tie strengthens Nottingham Forest's desire to play Premier League football

Forest were beaten 2-0 at Stamford Bridge to a strong Chelsea outfit which included David Luiz, Cesc Fabregas, Ross Barkley, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Alvaro Morata in the starting XI.

Morata, formerly of Real Madrid and Juventus, bagged a brace to see the holders progress into the fourth round of the prestigious competition, as Aitor Karanka’s men bowed out.

But Guedioura said the occasion gave Forest a taste of the top flight.

“When you play Premier League teams it makes you want to come back next season,” said the midfielder. “We want to be playing big teams like this every week so we need to take what we’ve learnt from today and focus on the league.

“Promotion is still the number one aim for us as a squad so we need to rest and recover well this week and get ready for a big game at Reading next weekend.”

Chelsea saw a lot of the ball during the tie, with 62 per cent possession and 23 shots on goal.

“It was a hard day and we had to run a lot,” said Guedioura. “We kept it at 0-0 until half-time and then we tried to push on in the second half but they scored two goals from good crosses.

“We wanted to be solid and I thought we were in the first half and then unfortunately we allowed them to score from two crosses after half-time. Generally though, I thought we worked really hard and tried to stop them from creating chances.”

And added: “It was always going to be tough trying to come here and get a result. Chelsea are fourth in the Premier League with a quality squad but we kept working hard right until the end but just couldn’t get that goal that our amazing fans deserved.”

Close to 3,000 Reds fans made the journey to Stamford Bridge.