Manchester City against Nottingham Forest is not the first fixture you circle when the Premier League calendar lands. There is no local feud, no decades-long grudge and, for much of the modern era, not enough meetings to manufacture one.
At the Etihad Stadium, though, the fixture has developed a recognisable personality.
City usually have the ball. Forest usually have less of it than they would ideally like. The question is whether City turn that control into the sort of comfortable afternoon everyone expects, or whether Forest can make the match awkward enough for doubt to creep into the stadium.
For several seasons, the answer was emphatically City.
Then came March 2026.
Forest twice came from behind to draw 2-2 at the Etihad, despite City having 70 per cent possession. It was a useful reminder that football stubbornly refuses to behave like a spreadsheet.
Manchester City vs Nottingham Forest at the Etihad: Recent Results
Since Forest returned to the Premier League in 2022, their league visits to the Etihad have produced a pretty clear progression.
| Season | Result | City scorers |
|---|---|---|
| 2022/23 | Manchester City 6-0 Nottingham Forest | Haaland 3, Cancelo, Álvarez 2 |
| 2023/24 | Manchester City 2-0 Nottingham Forest | Foden, Haaland |
| 2024/25 | Manchester City 3-0 Nottingham Forest | Bernardo Silva, De Bruyne, Doku |
| 2025/26 | Manchester City 2-2 Nottingham Forest | Semenyo, Rodri |
Across those four matches, City scored 13 goals and Forest scored two.
The interesting bit is where those two Forest goals appear. Both came in the most recent meeting.
That feels significant. Forest went from being comprehensively beaten, to contained, to beaten again, and finally to taking something home with them.
The 6-0 in 2022: Haaland Introduces Himself
Forest’s first Premier League trip to the Etihad after promotion was brutal.
City won 6-0 on 31 August 2022, with Erling Haaland scoring a first-half hat-trick. João Cancelo added the fourth before Julián Álvarez scored twice.
Haaland’s treble was his second successive Premier League hat-trick and took him to nine goals after only five appearances.
Watching City around this period could feel slightly unfair. You spent years hearing that Premier League football was supposed to require adjustment, patience and perhaps a cold Tuesday somewhere unpleasant.
Haaland apparently missed that meeting.
Forest were simply overwhelmed. City could move them around through possession, attack the spaces created by that movement and then send the ball towards a striker who seemed designed specifically to punish defenders who were already exhausted.
The scoreline remains the biggest of Forest’s recent Etihad visits.
The 2-0 in 2023 Was Stranger Than It Looks
A 2-0 Manchester City home win sounds almost aggressively ordinary.
The actual game was not.
Phil Foden put City ahead after seven minutes, finishing a remarkable 46-pass move. Haaland doubled the advantage seven minutes later.
At that point, Forest looked in serious trouble.
Then Rodri was sent off immediately after half-time.
Suddenly City had to spend almost an entire half playing with ten men.
Forest finished with ten shots to City’s seven, while City had 60 per cent possession. The visitors could not convert the change in momentum into a goal and City protected their 2-0 advantage.
I actually find this one more revealing than the 6-0.
Anybody can admire City when the passing is flowing and Haaland is treating centre-backs like mildly inconvenient street furniture. Playing with ten men required something different.
City became pragmatic.
Forest pushed harder, but the champions showed they could defend territory and manage a match rather than simply suffocate it through possession.
Kevin De Bruyne Takes Over in 2024
The December 2024 meeting came under very different circumstances.
City were in trouble.
They had gone seven matches without a victory in all competitions and had lost four consecutive Premier League games. Suddenly, the Etihad was hosting something rather unfamiliar: a Manchester City side badly needing reassurance.
Forest did not provide any.
Bernardo Silva opened the scoring before Kevin De Bruyne made it 2-0. Jérémy Doku completed a 3-0 victory in the second half. De Bruyne finished with a goal and an assist on his return to the starting XI.
For me, this is the most important Etihad meeting between the clubs before the 2026 draw.
The 6-0 demonstrated City’s ceiling. The 3-0 showed their capacity to rediscover themselves when confidence had disappeared.
De Bruyne was central to it.
There was a familiar authority to his performance. Forest were facing a City team carrying genuine pressure, yet once De Bruyne started finding spaces between the lines, the match began looking suspiciously like the old City again.
The 2-2 Draw in 2026 Changed the Pattern
On 4 March 2026, Forest finally broke through.
Antoine Semenyo gave City the lead after 31 minutes before Morgan Gibbs-White equalised shortly after half-time.
Rodri restored City’s advantage in the 62nd minute.
Forest responded again.
Elliot Anderson scored after 76 minutes and the match finished 2-2.
This was not Forest pinching an equaliser after spending 90 minutes hiding behind the sofa.
City still dominated the numbers.
| Statistic | Manchester City | Nottingham Forest |
| Possession | 70% | 30% |
| Shots | 19 | 9 |
| Shots on target | 6 | 4 |
| Passes | 773 | 326 |
| Pass accuracy | 92% | 82% |
| Corners | 6 | 1 |
Yet Forest scored twice.
More importantly, they responded twice.
City led 1-0 and 2-1. Forest refused to let either setback decide the match.
From a fan’s perspective, these are the games that make possession statistics slightly maddening. You can watch your side complete hundreds of passes, dominate territory and control almost every conventional metric, then look at the scoreboard and wonder why the opposition are still hanging around.
Forest were hanging around.
And eventually they left with a point.
Why Forest Can Be Awkward for City
The basic tactical problem for Forest at the Etihad is obvious.
Trying to out-pass Manchester City is generally not Plan A unless you have an unusually adventurous relationship with danger.
The more realistic route is to concede possession selectively, remain compact and attack the space City leave when committing players forward.
That requires enormous concentration.
City are happy to circulate possession until a defender moves a few yards too far. Once that happens, the attack can accelerate rapidly through combinations around the penalty area.
Forest therefore need discipline more than aggression.
There is little value charging after City’s centre-backs if the press is not coordinated. One player jumps, City play around him, and suddenly somebody like Foden is receiving between the lines with defenders retreating towards their own goal.
That is generally where the afternoon starts becoming expensive.
The Haaland Problem
Forest’s defensive planning at the Etihad inevitably has to account for Erling Haaland.
His 2022 hat-trick demonstrated the problem perfectly.
Defend deep and Haaland occupies the centre-backs inside the penalty area.
Push higher and there is space behind.
Commit extra defenders to him and City gain room elsewhere.
Leave him isolated against one centre-back and good luck with that.
The most effective approach is usually preventative. Stop the service rather than expecting defenders to repeatedly beat Haaland once the ball reaches dangerous areas.
That means closing crossing angles, protecting central passing lanes and making City’s creators receive the ball in less threatening positions.
Easy to type. Considerably harder when the ball has already been passed 30 times and your midfield has been dragged from one side of the pitch to the other.
Forest’s Counter-Attacking Threat
The 2026 draw demonstrated why Forest cannot simply be treated as passive visitors.
Morgan Gibbs-White has been particularly important because he gives Forest a player capable of carrying possession through transitions rather than immediately surrendering it.
That matters enormously at the Etihad.
Winning the ball is only half the job. Teams then need enough composure to escape City’s counter-press.
A clearance buys five seconds.
A progressive pass can create an attack.
Forest’s best moments tend to come when they bypass City’s first wave of pressure and can attack defenders who are moving backwards. It turns City’s territorial dominance into temporary vulnerability.
Those opportunities are rare, but Forest no longer need many of them.
Their efficiency in the 2026 meeting proved the point.
How the Fixture Has Evolved
There is a neat progression in the four recent Etihad meetings.
The first was destruction.
The second required City to manage adversity.
The third became a confidence-restoring victory during a difficult spell.
The fourth ended with Forest taking a point.
That makes the fixture more interesting than the raw historical imbalance suggests.
City remain the side expected to dictate possession and territory at home. Forest’s challenge has gradually shifted from basic survival towards finding ways to exploit the moments when City’s control becomes vulnerable.
The 6-0 feels a long way from the 2-2.
That is progress you can actually see.
Etihad Stadium Factor
Playing City at the Etihad has traditionally required patience bordering on sainthood.
The pitch can feel enormous when the home side begin switching play. Forest’s midfielders are forced to cover large distances while City’s attackers repeatedly rotate positions.
There is also a psychological element.
Opponents can survive 20 minutes, defend well and feel reasonably comfortable, then concede after one lapse. Suddenly the entire plan changes.
Forest’s 2026 performance was encouraging precisely because they reacted differently.
They conceded first and equalised.
They conceded again and equalised again.
That resilience matters almost as much as the tactical details.
Best Manchester City Performance Against Forest at the Etihad
The obvious answer is the 6-0 in August 2022.
City scored six, Haaland produced a hat-trick and Álvarez announced himself with two goals.
In pure football terms, however, I have a soft spot for the opening goal of the 2023 match.
Forty-six passes preceded Foden’s finish.
There is something wonderfully excessive about that.
Most teams would consider ten passes a respectable possession sequence. City essentially completed a small administrative procedure before scoring.
It captured Guardiola’s football at its most controlled.
Forest’s Best Etihad Performance
The 2-2 draw in March 2026 comfortably takes this one.
Not because Forest dominated. They didn’t.
They had only 30 per cent possession and were heavily outpassed.
What they did have was resilience and efficiency.
Forest absorbed pressure, survived long periods without the ball and twice responded to falling behind.
For an away side at the Etihad, that is often what success looks like.
You rarely get to control the entire match.
You need to control the moments that matter.
What the Numbers Tell Us
Across the four Premier League meetings at the Etihad following Forest’s 2022 promotion:
Manchester City wins: 3
Draws: 1
Nottingham Forest wins: 0
Manchester City goals: 13
Nottingham Forest goals: 2
Clean sheets for City: 3
Highest-scoring game: Manchester City 6-0 Nottingham Forest
The headline is obviously City’s dominance.
The trend underneath it is more interesting.
City’s winning margins went from six goals in 2022 to two in 2023 and three in 2024 before disappearing entirely in 2026.
Forest have still not won at the Etihad in this modern Premier League sequence, but they have finally shown that possession dominance does not automatically translate into a City victory.
Takeaway
Manchester City against Nottingham Forest at the Etihad remains a fixture City expect to win.
History supports them. The goals column certainly supports them.
But Forest have become considerably more awkward visitors.
The early meetings were largely about surviving City’s attacking machinery. The 2026 draw suggested something different. Forest were capable of absorbing pressure, recovering from setbacks and punishing moments when City’s defensive structure loosened.
As a fan, that makes the fixture much more appealing.
A predictable 3-0 can be technically impressive. It rarely lives long in the memory.
A match where City dominate possession, Forest refuse to disappear and the whole thing remains alive deep into the second half?
I’ll take that.
Preferably with slightly less stress.
About the Author
