Rico Lewis, Mateo Kovacic, Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City, and Ruben Dias of Manchester City look dejected after the Premier League match
Rico Lewis, Mateo Kovacic, Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City, and Ruben Dias of Manchester City look dejected after the Premier League match
'Abysmal. Awful to watch. Nothing to report.'
The verdicts for Manchester City's first half at Nottingham Forest were not the best, and it felt like the match officials agreed. Two minutes were held up after a stoppage for injury to Matheus Nunes that had gone beyond that on its own, and even then referee Chris Kavanagh (who had a good game) blew early.
Anyone hoping for a thriller at the City Ground between the team who have had the least possession in the Premier League this season and the team that have done the least with it was disappointed. Given the stats though and how the campaign has played out, those people were also deluded.
Pep Guardiola and his side certainly didn't enjoy their previous two trips to this tricky ground, somehow falling to a draw in 2023 after dominating before edging a scratchy win last year on a difficult pitch. And that was when they were Premier League champions.
They still are for now, but won't be for long because too many of their games have been unnecessarily entertaining. Regular mistakes across the backline have dismantled City's aura, as have defeats to Spurs, Liverpool, Brighton, Bournemouth and the rest.
It's not clear what has been more surprising this season: Forest being above City at this point, or Forest being above City after losing to them comfortably 3-0 in December.
Nobody could have predicted in August that the Premier League champions would be below a side that only came back up to the division in 2022 come March, but certainly not after a routine 3-0 win at the Etihad. That looked to be City putting their troubles behind them, but the result disguised that the problems that would linger.
Kevin De Bruyne was the architect of that 3-0 win and his return from injury was looked to as a sign that the normal City would show themselves, but it proved another false dawn. At the City Ground, as he has been for six of the last nine matches, the Belgian was on the bench until the 69th minute.
Jack Grealish, another of City's best players in the reverse fixture, was an unused substitute less than a week after he hit the headlines for a night out after the FA Cup win over Plymouth. Guardiola made four changes in the course of the Forest game, but opted against turning to his £100m man.
As the game ticked on, it looked like a welcome return to stability for City with a solid performance however much it bored some. It looked like the Guardiola teams that have previously played at this ground, despite their lower position in the table.
Then, with eight minutes to go, the wheels came off again. One of the City analysts shouted as soon as the ball left the boot of Morgan Gibbs-White from the middle of the patch out over to Hudson-Odoi, urging Jeremy Doku to get back to cover.
He did not, and worse than that Josko Gvardiol could not stop being twisted and turned to allow the attacker to get his shot away.
Worse than that, Ederson - having made a terrific save minutes earlier to turn an effort on the post - allowed the ball to squirm through him at the near post.
From a City point of view, that was the abysmal part of the game - not the solid play that would have seen them leave this ground with at least a point.
With long weeks between games, the excuses are running out for these performances and results as City plan an almighty comeback next season. The first part of that involves a top-four finish, and after this result the Blues are looking anxiously over their shoulder rather than down at Forest from third position and up at Arsenal.
The good news for City is that the fixture list gets kinder now, but it won't matter if they keep throwing away positions with basic errors.