Grealish and Doku start in two changes for Forest clash | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola has made two changes to his team for this afternoon’s Premier League meeting with Nottingham Forest at the City Ground.

Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku comes in to replace Mateo Kovacic, who drops to the bench, and Phil Foden.

Foden - as well as Ruben Dias - misses out due to illness.

Erling Haaland, absent for the Chelsea FA Cup clash and Brighton Premier League game, returns today and takes his place among the substitutes.

City are hoping to keep up the pressure in the title race, with rivals Arsenal currently leading Tottenham 3-1 in the North London derby.

TEAMS

FOREST XI: Sels, Williams, Boly, Murillo, Niakhate, Aina, Danilo, Gibbs-White (c), Elanga, Hudson-Odoi, Wood

Subs: Turner, Sangare, Toffolo, Reyna, Yates, Origi, Montiel, Omobamidele, Ribeiro

CITY XI: Ederson, Walker (c), Akanji, Ake, Gvardiol, Rodrigo, Bernardo, De Bruyne, Doku, Grealish, Alvarez

Subs: Ortega Moreno, Carson, Stones, Kovacic, Haaland, Gomez, Nunes, Bobb, Lewis

TACTICS

Ederson is between the sticks this afternoon and protected by a back four of Kyle Walker, Manuel Akanji, Nathan Ake and Josko Gvardiol.

Rodrigo is the anchor man in the midfield, with Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva getting forward on either side of him.

Jack Grealish will look to work his magic on the left wing and Jeremy Doku is expected to attack down the right in support of central forward Julian Alvarez.

300 UP FOR PEP

Pep Guardiola will hit 300 Premier League games for City this afternoon.

He will become the 19th manager to notch up that number of matches and just the fifth to do so for a single club, after Arsene Wenger with Arsenal, Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, David Moyes with Everton and Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool.

He’s currently got the best win percentage (73.6%) and won most games (220) during his 299 games in charge while City top the overall Premier League table in that period with 701 points ahead of Liverpool with 650, Arsenal with 555, Tottenham with 546 and Manchester United with 543.

It’s worth noting that six of the last seven bosses to hit the 300 landmark have lost their milestone match, with the exception being a 3-0 win for Jurgen Klopp against Aston Villa earlier this season.

They were Tony Pulis at West Brom, Rafa Benitez at Newcastle, Jose Mourinho at Manchester United – in a 3-1 defeat to City in the November 2018 derby – Crystal Palace’s Roy Hodgson and Everton’s Sean Dyche – in a 2-0 loss to City in February 2024.

Guardiola will certainly look to buck that trend as he targets three points in the search of a quite incredible sixth Premier League title during his time with the Etihad.

This one, of course, if we can manage it, would represent the fourth in succession which is something never achieved before in the history of English football.

TOGETHER AGAIN

We’re back at the City Ground this afternoon, a hugely symbolic venue in our 2022/23 Treble success.

It was here last season that we somehow managed to snatch a draw from the jaws of victory after a dominant display in the East Midlands.

Chris Wood's late goal cancelled out Bernardo Silva's first half rocket from 20 yards but we missed a host of chances to put the game to bed.

The result left us two points behind Arsenal, having played a game more, too.

In the Together: Treble Winners documentary on Netflix, you can see the immense frustration in the dressing room after the game.

Rodrigo is furious and screams: “If we want to win this Premier League we have to grasp it.”

And that’s exactly what we did, winning the next 12 games on our way to the title.

Pep Guardiola’s men are hunting a fourth in succession this season and victory at the City Ground today could be another catalyst moment.

WATCH: Stat Attack: Nottingham Forest v City

MATCH STATS

-Nottingham Forest have lost just three of their last 16 top-flight home games against City (W10 D3), going down 2-0 in 1985, 3-1 in 1990 and 2-0 in 1993.

-City are looking to complete their first league double over Nottingham Forest since 1999/00 in the second tier and their first in the top-flight since 1990/91.

-Between May 1991 and December 1994, Nottingham Forest were unbeaten in seven league games against reigning top-flight champions (W4 D3). Since then, they’ve lost eight of their nine such games (D1), conceding 32 goals across these matches.

-Nottingham Forest have won just one of their last nine Premier League games (D3 L5), though they are unbeaten in their last three at the City Ground (W1 D2).

WATCH: Guardiola: 'Unbelievable' Foden can get even better

-Nottingham Forest have kept just one clean sheet in their last 23 Premier League games, with that coming via a 2-0 win over West Ham in February.

-City have lost both of their Premier League games in the Midlands so far this season, going down 2-1 at Wolves and 1-0 at Aston Villa. They last lost three consecutive such visits between March and December 2008.

-Nottingham Forest manager Nuno Espírito Santo has won three of his last five Premier League encounters with City (L2), including his most recent one with Spurs in August 2021 (1-0). In fact, the Portuguese has lost just one of his four home top-flight matches against Man City boss Pep Guardiola (W2 D1), a 1-3 loss with Wolves in September 2020.

-Since the start of 2017/18, City have won all 13 of their Premier League away games in the month of April.

-Erling Haaland has scored with four of his eight shots against Nottingham Forest in the Premier League (including a first half hat-trick in August 2022), with all four of those strikes coming at the Etihad. At the City Ground last season, he missed two big chances and failed to find the net despite posting an xG of 0.73.