Nottingham Forest returned to winning ways as they clinched a big 1-0 victory over Manchester City thanks to Callum Hudson-Odoi’s late goal at the City Ground.
The Reds were third in the Premier League table ahead of kick-off, one point and one place above their opponents. And with so much at stake, it was a scrappy start to proceedings on Trentside.
Forest struggled to settle into a rhythm in the opening minutes and City fired a couple of early warning shots through Erling Haaland and Nico Gonzalez. The hosts kept battling away, though, and more than held their own in a cagey affair.
Clearcut chances were few and far between at either end before the break. Chris Wood came closest to a breakthrough for the Reds, with their only shot on target of the first half. The front man latched on to a long ball but couldn’t beat Ederson with his effort. It came after Matz Sels had made a save from a Jeremy Doku drive.
Nicolas Dominguez forced Ederson into action soon after the restart and Hudson-Odoi struck the post as Forest started the second half well. They got their rewards in the end as Hudson-Odoi scored what proved to be the winner in the 83rd minute when he latched on to a Morgan Gibbs-White ball and fired in.
Here's what the media had to say about their win over City...
The Guardian
Can we just hear it for Nottingham Forest, please? Sure, Manchester City continued their plummet from Premier League title winners to scrambling for Champions League qualification, but the achievements of Nuno Espírito Santo’s team deserve full recognition.
Callum Hudson-Odoi scored the winning goal seven minutes from time to enhance Forest’s hold on third place, four points clear of City, as the team who finished 17th last season deservedly overcame the side who were claiming their fourth successive title back then. If ever there was a game that epitomised both clubs’ seasons, this was it.
Pep Guardiola’s team have gained only one point from their last eight games against teams starting the day in the top four. But they were outfoxed by a Forest side who, having held Arsenal here 10 days ago, thrived from their counterattacking platform in the second half to extend their unbeaten home run to eight games. They have lost only twice here in the league all season. After this first league win over City in 28 years, Forest deserve to be where they are.
The Times
Despite the sunny weather, Nuno Espírito Santo wore his usual long padded stadium jacket. He’s not for changing but the challenge is dealing with him. Premier League opponents know what he’s going to do but whether they can stop him doing it to them is quite another matter.
This was Nuno 101, this was Nottingham Forest at their ruthless, minimalist, best. This was a side on 31 per cent possession getting more shots on target, creating more dangerous moments and, almost without drama, beating the champions of England, the game’s richest club.
Of course City are not the scalp they were: this was the 15th defeat of a cataclysmic season for Pep Guardiola. But the job Forest did on them was still a major feat, partly because of its meaning — for their Champions League prospects beating the team just below them and going four clear points ahead in third place, was massive.
Forest were everything Nuno works on: resilient, super-organised, hyper-competitive and full of flashes of counterattacking danger. City were what they have too often been this season: a stodgy, predictable parody of the great side of not long ago which swept to so many trophies.
It wasn’t the most entertaining match — indeed it probably wasn’t in the top 100,000 of entertaining matches — but it was decided by an electric talent scoring a lovely goal. Callum Hudson-Odoi. The claims of Elliot Anderson and Morgan Gibbs-White are talked about more but Hudson-Odoi must also be a contender for Thomas Tuchel’s first England squad.
The Telegraph
This was once again the nightmare scenario for Manchester City to which Pep Guardiola’s total football was once impervious: the late raid on the break by a resilient team who had waited the whole afternoon for just one opportunity.
This time it was Callum Hudson-Odoi, who turned on its head a lunchtime of patient passing and low-grade incursions from City on one moment of high-octane counter-attacking football. For everything Guardiola’s careful crafters of possession and territory can do in this, their giant mid-season slump, there was nothing to match the turnover, pass and finish with which Forest won a crucial fourth-place shoot-out.
Guardiola remains reluctant to point the finger at individuals. He talks in general terms about the lack of speed of play, and the finer details that his team have got wrong. But even he must be shocked at how fragile it has all proved. As soon as his team have begun playing imperfect Guardiola football, they have looked vulnerable indeed. What was missing here, as it has been over the winter and into this continuing spring of discontent, was the intensity, the power and ultimately the goals that have defined City’s era of unprecedented success.
The reigning Premier League champions had lots of the ball but they never got close to breaking Forest’s spirit.
The i
Make no mistake. This ground and these players are primed for the Champions League challenge that now surely awaits.
This was a statement from Nottingham Forest, not so much a heist against Manchester City but a case of patiently waiting and slowly improving, growing into the game and then pouncing when it mattered most.
It took Forest until the 83rd minute to expose City’s true weakness – the space down the flanks – but this was a counter-attack that blew the roof off, as Callum Hudson-Odoi’s strike squeezed past Ederson at the near post to solidify their place in third.
“When it became up and down like basketball, that was good for us,” Nuno said with a telling smile.
Forest are now four points clear of fourth-placed City, and with fifth set to become a Champions League place as well, Nuno’s side would be right to believe this dream is less than three months away from becoming a reality.
“Get your passports lads!” one buoyant fan yelled on the steps down from the terraces. “One foot in the top four!” beamed another.
And who would want to come here? That question genuinely applies for any continental side, for Forest really know how to get up for the big games. They have drawn with Liverpool and Arsenal at the City Ground this season, beating Aston Villa and thumping Brighton to boot.
The reward for this will be European football, in at least some sort of guise. The Europa League now feels like the fallback, with a return to the European Cup for the first time since 1980 firmly in the offing.
“We’ve got to stay humble. We know the position we’re in but there’s still a lot of games to go,” Hudson-Odoi said.
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