Nottingham Forest vs Manchester City Premier League match, Digi Mart USA News: Wait long enough, and results will come to reflect performances. Manchester City had won their first seven games of the season but always looked vulnerable, and they have now lost three in a row.
Nottingham Forest were second bottom of the table but, apart from missing chances and conceding careless goals, they seemed to be playing reasonably well.
Put the two together, and the outcome was a dramatic regression to the mean. It turns out the statistics were right after all.
Liam Delap scored twice to remind people what a good striker he can be. Oliver Glasner, after last week’s anger, can breathe a little easier in his job, while Enzo Maresca remains a paradox: a manager obsessed with control whose teams often seem oddly susceptible to direct running.
After last week’s defeat at Brentford, Glasner said he regretted compromising too much in the early weeks of his reign at Forest. Although he gave no precise details, he elaborated on Thursday, speaking of the need for “trust and respect” in the right balance.
He suggested there had been too much trust and not enough respect this season at Forest, too much Woodstock and not enough “high-performance nature of military.”
Glasner’s new uncompromising approach began with just two changes to the starting lineup from the Brentford defeat, with Ola Aina and Dan Ndoye dropping out for Daniel Muñoz and Ryan Yates, who both came on at half-time last week. The revolution may have been underwhelming, but it soon worked.
Jair Cunha dispossessed Josko Gvardiol and ran through to open the scoring after six minutes, Forest’s first home goal since Morgan Gibbs-White’s strike against Bournemouth 34 minutes into the final game of last season, a drought of 510 minutes.
No side this season had underperformed its expected goals (xG) by such a margin as Forest. They began the weekend third in Opta’s expected table but second bottom of the actual table.
To an extent that is a matter of misfortune. Defeat at Brentford last week, for instance, resulted from a cross and a shot that both looped in off Nikola Milenkovic, and when a side concedes one shot on target but two goals, it has clearly been unlucky.
On Saturday, three minutes after Forest had taken the lead, a Jérémy Doku shot hit Milenkovic and, rather than looping past Matz Sels, cannoned wide for a corner, a moment that suggested Forest’s luck had turned.
One of the biggest issues for Forest this season has been the form of Delap. A gruelling spell at Chelsea had seemingly sapped his confidence, but 18 minutes in he surged from inside his own half, ran between Rúben Dias and Marc Guéhi, as Jair had for the opener, and thumped his shot over the dive of Gianluigi Donnarumma.
With confidence restored, Delap is a very different player.
Guéhi’s form, meanwhile, is becoming a major concern for City. With Dias wary of Xaver Schlager running to his right and potentially becoming a passing option, it was Guéhi’s responsibility to close Delap down.
Instead, the pair left a huge channel, inviting Delap to keep running to score his second goal since joining Forest. Guéhi and Gvardiol were both withdrawn at half-time.
If James McAtee had not missed the target with two presentable opportunities, Forest could have been out of sight by half-time. It was never going to be that easy, though.
Seven minutes into the second half, a long diagonal sent Doku in behind Muñoz, and although his cross was half-cleared, Rayan Cherki slammed in a brilliant half volley. In a moment, the mood changed, and the anxiety built up by two months of disappointing form resurfaced.
Forest may feel that, after the season they have had, they are owed some luck. They nearly received a slice of it when a Yates shot deflected off Elliot Anderson and dropped on to the back of the bar.
Still, they had burned through considerable effort, with blocks, brave headers and clearances off the line, when Gibbs-White set Delap away on the counter. A week ago, it would barely have registered as an opportunity, but with self-belief restored, Delap swept into the box and drove his finish in off the far post.
Forest are out of the relegation zone, and the idea that City might challenge Arsenal for the title, even without a points deduction, is beginning to look a little fanciful.
