The Portuguese managed to take his team to another of the Premier League ’s fancied sides and get a draw.
Potter, having previously managed Chelsea, was speaking after Forest’s 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge.
He stated on MOTD 2: “It was an interesting tactical battle down that side you obviously got the threat of (Noni) Madueke and Palmer for Chelsea with (Malo) Gusto supporting. But then the way Nottingham Forest dealt with that, with their midfield three of (James) Ward-Prowse, (Ryan) Yates and (Elliot) Anderson forcing Palmer a little wider. This is the battle all day.
“Forest get back in numbers, Chelsea do well to threaten constantly in that area but credit to Forest. Even when the midfielders weren't there, the defenders, the centre backs recognise it and as the game grew on, they could maybe mount their own attacks. So tactically it was fascinating to see how how both teams probed at each other.
“Yes, you have to be tactically good but you also need your goalkeeper as Maresca said. There's two elements Tactically, you need to be smart, which they were and then the goalkeeper was fantastic
“Chelsea were good, so Forest had to be good as well to stay in the game, to restrict the chances. In the first half they didn't create so many, Chelsea, but as the game grew on, they got more and more.
“The second half changed completely because Forest scored and then the whole atmosphere changed and the game changed, it went a bit more end to end and a bit more uncontrolled but in the first half, Forest did really well in terms of trying to restrict Chelsea to not too many clear cut chances.”