The first date on the calendar brings a game for the Blues with many more to follow, and having arrived at Stamford Bridge in the September of the closing year, Graham Potter gave his view on the months to come and what he hopes they will bring.

‘Well, we want to keep improving, that's the simple answer,’ he says. ‘We've had some ups and some downs in terms of the previous year, which is normal I think in any football club, but we want to try and stabilise and we want to try and improve and make our supporters happy, because we know that before the break, the last few weeks, it wasn't nice for us.

‘Results suffered and performances weren't where we'd like them to be. So we have to do better than that.’

There were good signs for the games ahead in the way that the Blues restarted the campaign and beat Bournemouth. Now on New Year’s Day comes a visit to a club in the bottom three. The Blues certainly are not letting our guard down as we face Nottingham Forest.

‘You always have to be wary in the Premier League,’ warns Potter.

‘You can't say on the one hand, it's the greatest league in the world and then think there are easy games. There aren't.

‘Forest had a fantastic result against Liverpool before the break and I have huge respect for Steve Cooper and the job that he's done there. It’s tremendous, he’s a fantastic coach.

‘So they'll be ready. The atmosphere will be hostile I'm pretty sure, because they've been back in the Premier League for the first year for a long, long time so every game, especially Chelsea coming to town, is a big game for them.

‘They'll be motivated and they’ll have the quality and they'll be fighting for the points so we have to be ready.’