Nottingham Forest 1, Manchester City 1
Chris Wood scored a late equaliser for Nottingham Forest after wasteful Manchester City could not add to Bernardo Silva’s opening goal.
Embed from Getty ImagesCity had won 6-0 at the Etihad earlier in the season but Forest boss Steve Cooper marshalled his side to earn a point at the City Ground.
It was one way traffic as City peppered Forest with 23 shots including one that hit the woodwork by Erling Haaland but were thwarted by stout defending, poor misses, and a string of second half saves by veteran goalkeeper Keylor Navas.
City could not add to Bernardo Silva’s first half opening goal – a 20 yard screamer – and paid the penalty for their profligacy when Chris Wood popped up with a late equaliser.
The draw meant that City ceded the top spot back to Arsenal who won in the early kick off as Forest’s unbeaten home run stretched to eight games.
City boss Pep Guardiola backed his team after his team were brought back to earth with a bump after their big win at Arsenal in mid week.
He said: “Congratulations to Forest.
“This was one of our best performances of the season but we could not convert our chances and in the last minutes they scored.
“We played more than acceptable but could not score. We could not believe it.
He was tight-lipped over Of Erling Haaland’s red card claim against Joe Worrall for his second half tackle.
“He was the last man and went direct to the keeper but fell down, the referee had a different point of view.
But he concluded: “This is no time to reflect, we go to Germany to play a tough team in the Champions League and after that Bournemouth.”
City made just two changes from the side that beat Arsenal in mid-week, with Aymeric Laporte and Phil Foden coming in to replace Nathan Ake and Riyad Mahrez.
And it was normal service resumed as City utterly dominated the game in the first half though chances for Jack Grealish, Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne, and Laporte, were blocked or wide.
City had come very close through Rodri who headed wide after De Bruyne found him in the middle of the Forest box.
It seemed for a time that the home side would would hold on.
But shortly before half time Manchester City took the lead after their first shot on target as Bernardo Silva scored only his third goal of the season – his first since August – when he fired home first time from the edge of the box after Grealish found him with a square pass.
Chances for Ruben Dias, Laporte with a superb header, and De Bruyne were saved after the break while Rodri’s effort was wide.
Pep Guardiola was booked for protesting strongly after Joe Worrall escaped a second yellow card for a soft looking foul on Erling Haaland.
The Norwegian hit the woodwork and blazed the rebound over the bar with the goal at his mercy after Foden’s shot was saved while Gundogan was also denied by Navas as he looked to find the top corner.
Forest had hung on for 84 minutes and stunned City with a goal by Chris Wood the first shot on target by the home side after the City defence switched off.
Wood finished from close range after Morgan Gibbs-White got the ball to him for a tap-in at the far post – VAR confirmed the goal was on-side.
Jack Grealish had an effort saved and Pep Guardiola sent on Nathan Ake and Julian Alvarez for Foden and De Bruyne for the final minutes but they could not find a winner.