Delap Double Sinks Man City as Forest Climb Out of the Bottom Three
Nottingham Forest's first home league win of the season handed Manchester City a third straight Premier League defeat after their seven-win start.
Three weeks ago Manchester City were seven wins from seven and looked like champions-elect. After a 3-1 defeat at the City Ground on Saturday — their third league loss in a row — the conversation has changed entirely, and Nottingham Forest are the ones breathing easier.
Forest's fast start
The tone was set inside six minutes, when Jair Cunha robbed Josko Gvardiol high up the pitch and finished with his left foot. Liam Delap doubled the lead in the 18th minute after Forest won the ball in midfield and sent him through, and City never fully recovered from a first half their head coach Enzo Maresca did not dress up: "It is quite clear that the first half was not good enough," he said, per Sky Sports.
City had their moments — Erling Haaland was denied by Cunha's goal-line clearance before the break — and Rayan Cherki's strike in the 52nd minute halved the deficit. But Ryan Yates rattled the crossbar, and Delap settled it in the 73rd, finishing off the post on a breakaway to complete his brace.
What it means
For Forest, the numbers finally bend the right way: a first home league win of the season lifts them out of the relegation zone to 16th on 9 points from 10 games, ending a five-match winless run. Manager Oliver Glasner played down talk of a turning point, reaching for an Austrian saying about one swallow not making a summer.
For City, the alarm is harder to mute. They sit third on 21 points, six behind leaders Arsenal, and the defeats are starting to rhyme: errors in buildup, lost duels in midfield, and opponents increasingly willing to press what had been the league's most controlled team. Sky's report went as far as suggesting the rest of the league now has a blueprint. The next few fixtures will show whether Saturday was a stumble or a pattern.