Rodrigo expecting stern Forest test | OneFootball

Rodrigo says last season’s trip to the City Ground is evidence enough of what a difficult test Sunday’s clash with Nottingham Forest will be.

City were forced to settle for a point despite dominating the 90 minutes, peppering Forest’s goal with 23 shots, but with only Bernardo’s first half goal separating the sides, Chris Wood snatched an equaliser six minutes from time to earn a 1-1 draw.

A similar scoreline on Sunday would put a sizeable dent in the Blues’ title hopes, but Rodrigo says experiencing the atmosphere and resilience Forest showed that day will stand City in good stead for this trip.

“That’s the Premier League,” said Rodrigo.

“We dominated the match in Nottingham last season and should have won comfortably, but Forest kept fighting.

“We didn’t defend the situation well enough for their goal and we got punished. Any team in the Premier League can punish you if you are not focused all of the time.

“You have to concentrate and be focused 100 per cent or else this can happen.

“We know the atmosphere will be good because they are fighting to stay in the Premier League, but we are fighting for the title, and we have to win this game.

“We know our fans will be there right behind us, too. We just need to focus on ourselves, be the best version of ourselves and play with our usual confidence.

“It will be a tough contest in a difficult stadium, but we will give it everything again to get the three points.”

City have beaten Chelsea and Brighton on the road since exiting the Champions League on penalties to Real Madrid.

The Spain international says having two games of such magnitude immediately after that shoot-out loss was exactly what the team needed in order to put the result behind us and drive on.

“The defeat was tough to take because we dominated the game from start to finish and should have put ourselves in the semi-final,” he said.

“But we didn’t take our chances and then penalties are a flip of a coin.

“We did feel down, but we knew that we had an unbelievable opportunity to bounce back two days later at Wembley in the FA Cup.

“That’s exactly what we did. It was tough, but we found a way to win the game and now we will fight until the end in both the FA Cup and Premier League.”

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