City eye top spot as festive road trip leads to the City Ground

Manchester City travel to the City Ground to take on Nottingham Forest in round 18 of the 2025/26 Premier League campaign in Saturday’s lunchtime kickoff.

Forest suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat at Fulham last time out and will be looking to return to winning ways, ending a 30-year streak against the Citizens.

Pep Guardiola’s men claimed a comfortable 3-0 home victory over West Ham in their last outing.

Match preview

Nottingham Forest won their last Premier League match against Man City 1-0 in March last season, last winning consecutive league games against the Citizens in September 1995.

Manchester City have failed to score in half of their Premier League away games against Nottingham Forest (3/6) but have avoided defeat in each of the three in which they’ve found the net (W2 D1).

The Tricky Trees have won their last four Premier League matches played between Christmas and New Year, all under Nuno Espírito Santo in 2023 and 2024.

The Citizens haven’t lost any of their last 10 Premier League matches played between Christmas and New Year (W8 D2) since losing 3-2 to Wolves on 27 December in the 2019/20 campaign.

Only Wolves (10) have failed to score in more different Premier League games than Forest (9) this season. It’s already more than the Tricky Trees failed to find the net in the whole of last season (8).

City have won each of their last three Premier League games by a 3-0 scoreline, last winning more consecutively without conceding in February 2021 (6). Meanwhile, no team in English top-flight history has ever won four in a row by 3+ goals to nil before.

Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche is winless in all 16 of his Premier League matches against Man City’s Pep Guardiola (D2 L14). Only Steve Bruce against Alex Ferguson (17) has managed more games against one manager without a single victory in the Premier League.

Erling Haaland has scored five goals in six Premier League appearances against Nottingham Forest, although 60% of those came in his first game against them in August 2022, when he netted a hat-trick from four attempts.

The Norwegian has scored 19 goals in 17 Premier League games for Manchester City this season. The only player in the competition’s history to score 20 before the end of the year in a campaign is Haaland himself (21 in 2022/23).

Team news

Nottingham Forest

Chris Wood and Ola Aina are training and recovering from their injuries but are unavailable.

Ryan Yates and Dan Ndoye are being assessed.

Ibrahim Sangare and Willy Boly are away at the Africa Cup of Nations.

Manchester City

Jeremy Doku, John Stones, Oscar Bobb, Mateo Kovacic and Rodri are on the sidelines for the visitors.

Rayan Ait-Nouri and Omar Marmoush are on international duty at the AFCON.

Predicted line-ups

Nottingham Forest: John Victor, Williams, Murillo, Milenkovic, Savona, Douglas Luiz, Anderson, Hudson-Odoi, Gibbs-White, Hutchinson, Igor Jesus.

Manchester City: Donnarumma, O’Reilly, Gvardiol, Dias, Nunes, Reijnders, Nico, Silva, Foden, Cherki, Haaland.