The champions of England won a football match last night. All fairly routine, nothing to see here.
Normality broke out, almost as if the last five weeks hadn’t existed. Yet they did, they existed in every touch, in every Pep Guardiola moan of anguish and frustration. Manchester City lived every one of those defeats in beating Nottingham Forest; the trick now is to follow this up at Crystal Palace on Saturday.
It’d be disingenuous to suggest that City are suddenly ready to launch firm opposition to Liverpool because this is only one win, one night. Guardiola will know there were patterns of their dismal seven-match winless run evident against Forest, who could have jumped above them with victory.
But the City manager will also leave encouraged for witnessing a little extra pep. Even more so that Kevin De Bruyne is back. Starting, powering City on after more than two months of pelvic injury problems.
‘De Bruyne is warming up and the whole country is shaking,’ were the words of Jurgen Klopp a little over 11 months ago. His feeling was that City would be galvanised by the re-emergence of their talisman then. He was a good judge back then.
City will hope for similar now. The return of the king – the only man since Colin Bell deserving of that description around these parts – doesn’t only offer some added ingenuity when they require it most. He makes the rest of them stand a bit taller, run a bit harder. De Bruyne’s mere presence prompts a subconscious desire to impress the best in the playground.
Kevin De Bruyne scored and provided an assist as Man City beat Nottingham Forest
The Belgian, making his first league start since September, fired in Man City’s second goal
The victory ended Manchester City and Pep Guardiola’s run of seven matches without a win
De Bruyne played a role in the eighth-minute opener and scored one himself just after the half hour as City generally offered more energy, spark and zip.
Bernardo Silva, for one, has not performed like this for a long time. Like the impish Duracell bunny of the Treble campaign on the right, bundling in a De Bruyne header floating wide from Ilkay Gundogan’s cross.
When higher up the pitch, Gundogan appeared to possess an extra half a yard – leaving Morgan Gibbs-White standing with a clever run in the build-up to Silva’s first of the league campaign.
Guardiola has asked for more contributions from those behind Erling Haaland and this is what he received, Jeremy Doku jinking and finding De Bruyne to whip beyond Matz Sels.
The evening soured somewhat following injuries to both Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji, with the former’s hamstring issue a serious concern which could be a long absence. City’s luck in the medical department certainly hasn’t changed.
‘We were better than against Liverpool and Bournemouth but quite similar to the other games that we didn’t win,’ Guardiola said. ‘Today we won. That’s all. We needed it. The club, the players, everyone needed to win.’
Much like the majority of their frightfully bad run of form, City ought to have been out of sight early, with Josko Gvardiol squandering two massive chances – heading wide and then skewing the wrong side of the post when clean through.
Tactical tweaks paid off, Jack Grealish’s rare outing as a proper central midfielder working, even throwing himself at Alex Moreno’s shot as a last line of defence.
Bernardo Silva has given Man City an eighth minute lead, stabbing home from close range
Jeremy Doku fired Man City into a 3-0 lead early in the second half to make the match safe
Nottingham Forest had chances with Morgan Gibbs-White denied by goalkeeper Stefan Ortega
Chris Wood inexplicably shot wide for the visitors following a dreadful De Bruyne pass
Despite all that, though, this had threatened to go the way of City’s recent past – after the near misses comes foolish defending, allowing matches to run away from them. Had Forest capitalised on lapses in concentration, then this may have been very different.
Gvardiol, a chief culprit in defensive calamity, had his pocket picked before Gibbs-White made Stefan Ortega work hard. De Bruyne’s dreadful pass put Chris Wood clean through, the striker inexplicably shooting wide. Wood’s miss came 90 seconds before De Bruyne’s goal. ‘It was a big minute,’ Nuno Espirito Santo rued. ‘There are positive things for us. There were mistakes but this game will allow us to grow.’
These were rare lapses by City yet lapses all the same, those to have gone punished over the last month. Not here and the night was done 12 minutes into the second half, Guardiola spinning on his heels, clenching his fists, grinning like we’ve seen so many times before.
Haaland, brutish up front, dropped off, held the ball up and looked for Doku. The Belgian did the rest, Forest backing off in fear of which way the winger darted. Doku saw Haaland but sized up Sels’s far corner, bending beyond the goalkeeper.