Delap double sinks Manchester City as Forest end home goal drought

Liam Delap scored twice to end Nottingham Forest's home goal drought in spectacular fashion, beating Manchester City 3-1 at the City Ground and condemning Enzo Maresca's side to a third consecutive Premier League defeat, Sky Sports Football reported.

Forest had gone the season without scoring in front of their own supporters before Saturday's result, according to Yahoo Sports, but they needed only six minutes to break that run when Jair Cunha bundled Josko Gvardiol off the ball and rolled a low finish into the bottom corner.

City's afternoon worsened quickly. On 18 minutes Xaver Schlager won a 50/50 challenge against Elliot Anderson in midfield, and Delap, facing the club where he came through the academy system, ran from inside his own half before rifling a finish past Gianluigi Donnarumma.

That put City 2-0 down inside the opening quarter of an hour of the second half beginning, the earliest they had trailed by two goals in a Premier League fixture since November 2019, Yahoo Sports noted.

Maresca had recalled Gvardiol, Ruben Dias and Jeremy Doku to his starting line-up, but the reshuffled defence offered little resistance as Forest's front line exploited the space in behind.

City did find a route back into the contest through Rayan Cherki, who met a deflected Doku cross with a sweetly struck left-footed half-volley on 52 minutes to make it 2-1 and spark a sustained spell of pressure.

The visitors finished the match with 78% of possession and 33 touches inside the Forest penalty area compared with Forest's 14, yet they could not find an equaliser.

Instead it was Forest who struck again, Delap completing his double on 73 minutes by lashing home a pass from Morgan Gibbs-White at the end of a swift counter-attack to restore the two-goal cushion.

City's defensive problems were compounded by changes at the break, with both Gvardiol and Marc Guehi withdrawn for Nico O'Reilly and Matheus Nunes respectively after a difficult first-half showing, while Enzo Fernandez, who had headed a good chance over from Guehi's cross on 25 minutes, was later substituted to boos when replaced by Phil Foden.

Writing for Guardian Football, Jonathan Wilson described the result as a dramatic regression to the mean, arguing that City had always looked vulnerable despite winning their opening seven league matches while Forest, for all their struggles in front of goal and at the back, had been playing reasonably well before this fixture.

Wilson also suggested that Oliver Glasner could breathe more easily in his job after a week of scrutiny, and characterised Maresca as a manager preoccupied with control whose teams nonetheless remain vulnerable to direct, fast-breaking opposition.

The result leaves City second in the Premier League table on 21 points, now six behind leaders Arsenal, while Forest climb out of the relegation zone and up to 16th.