City's first three-match losing run since 2016 needs Forest's first goal at the City Ground
Manchester City's two league defeats in a row can only become three if Nottingham Forest do something they have not done all season: score at the City Ground. Four home league matches have brought Forest one point and no goals.
Leeds, Coventry and Arsenal each left the City Ground this season with a 1-0 win, and Tottenham with a goalless draw. That is the whole of Forest's home league record: four matches, one point, not a goal. Oliver Glasner's side are 19th, with one win from nine.
Forest have not scored at the City Ground all season and one goal has won there three times, which leaves City a narrow win to take.
It is not for want of defending. On the quality of the chances they give away, only Arsenal concede less. "It's not that our performances are disastrous, I just feel that some bits are missing," Glasner said this week. Igor Jesus, out with a calf injury since September, is one of those bits. Elliot Anderson was another: he scored Forest's late equaliser at the Etihad in March, left for City in the summer for a fee reported as a British record, and on Wednesday crossed for Erling Haaland's winner in Leipzig.
City bring doubts of their own to the back line. They lost 2-1 at Aston Villa and 1-0 at home to Brighton after winning their first seven league games under Enzo Maresca, and in Leipzig they twice gave up the lead before winning 3-2. Maresca has been rotating Rúben Dias, Marc Guéhi and Abdukodir Khusanov in central defence, and says Nico O'Reilly is not fully fit.
Arsenal, three points clear, play Hull earlier on Saturday. Defeat would send City into the international break with three league losses in a row, a run they last had in March 2016. Three visitors have already won at the City Ground with a single goal, and Glasner needs from his side the one thing they have not managed there all season.
