Nottingham Forest defeated Manchester City 3-1 to end their five-game winless run in the Premier League.
Oliver Glasner has done it again. The ultimate big-game manager has pulled results for the Tricky Trees against the likes of City, Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool this season. That is despite collecting defeats to Coventry City, Crystal Palace and Brentford.
The Austrian also remains unbeaten when facing Enzo Maresca, with three draws against Chelsea in addition to tonight’s win over the Citizens.
Though this is one of the main storylines of the game, we also must shed a light on Liam Delap‘s delightful double. Two stunning goals to fuel their 3-1 win on top of a few tactical explanations for what happened at the City Ground.
How and why did Nottingham Forest beat Man City?
Sharp man-marking
The common theme from Nottingham Forest’s first two goals was individual mistakes on Man City’s behalf. Though the one that led to the opener and broke the deadlock was a forced error.
Glasner set his team to mark in man-oriented fashion all throughout the pitch, whether it was in pressing situations or deep defending. They never lost track of the closest opponent and also were very aggressive at all times, no matter how high or low they were sitting.
Just five minutes in, Jair tracked Josko Gvardiol closely and immediately went to press as soon as the Croatian received. This resulted in a turnover, with the Brazilian centre-back carrying the ball forward like a midfielder and finishing on his weaker foot like a striker.
Forest also made sure to pounce on every City mistake – and there were plenty. Indecision between Iliman Ndiaye and Elliot Anderson left created a huge opening for Delap to take the ball forward and finish beautifully to double their lead. James McAtee could have added a third from yet another counter attack, but put his shot over the bar.
And it was a fast break that sealed the deal for the hosts. It was an impressive sequence from the start, first with Ryan Yates‘ improvisational, bicycle kick clearance and Delap’s turn to set up Morgan Gibbs-White to push the pace. He then played it back to Delap who struck a beautiful shot across with his left foot that hit the inside of the post before going in.
Maresca’s late adjustments
Going back to Nottingham Forest’s sharp man-marking, Man City surely helped with how static and rigid they were. Especially in the first half.
Enzo Maresca set them up in a 4-1-5 in-possession, with Elliot Anderson becoming a left-centre-back alongside Ruben Dias. Marc Guehi and Abdukodir Khusanov acted as limited full-backs with either Rayan Cherki or Josko Gvardiol dropping deeper between them and a line of five spread across the final third.
Not only was there little movement and rotations, but also they looked to progress mainly through passing alone. This meant that every player received the ball with their back to goal and a Forest defender glued on them at all times. It helped the hosts to steal possession with their aggresssive approach.
When the time came for wingers to take defenders on and create advantages in other ways than just passing it around, nothing happened. Jeremy Doku finished the first half with 1/5 successful take-ons and Ndiaye 0/1.
Both players improved in the second half in terms of individual creation. Doku was 2/3 and Ndiaye 3/7 in take-ons after the break, huge upticks both in volume and efficiency in this regard compared to the first 45 minutes.
But Maresca also changed a lot of things, letting his team loose in the second half. For starters, he replaced Guehi and Gvardiol, leaving more qualified attacking options as full-backs in Nico O’Reilly and especially Matheus Nunes.
The Portuguese had huge and immediate impact off the bench. City looked to focus their attacking actions on the right-hand side from the start. But with Ndiaye failing to take defenders on and having to rely on quick interactions with Enzo Fernandez on the half-space and Khusanov offering zero danger going forward, almost nothing happened.
Nunes then offered something else for Forest and their man-oriented defending to think about. He made a lot of untracked runs and showed up in dangerous places multiple times, and the Tricky Trees struggle to adapt.
Their positional system remained relatively similar down that side, with Ndiaye holding the width and Fernandez in the half-space. But Nunes’ presence and movement changed everything, since his Argentine teammate covered his role while he burst forward.
O’Reilly also has much more presence inside the box than Gvardiol and gave them more bodies near the goal.
Cherki also received more freedom to roam around and collect the ball near defenders, acting as a deep-lying playmaker. That’s actually what led to his goal, with him picking out a beautiful long pass to Doku during a rare lapse in attention from Daniel Munoz.
The Frenchman recorded 24 overall touches in his own half in the game, a whopping 15 of which came in the final 45 minutes.
All in all, the second half showed that City can definitely hit another gear and show much more than they did in the first half.
They only started manipulating Forest’s man-marking around the 40th minute mark with simple actions and are capable of doing a lote more elaborate actions to confuse opponents – like it happened after the break.