{"id":9772,"date":"2026-03-05T14:02:52","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=9772"},"modified":"2026-03-05T14:02:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:02:52","slug":"man-city-2-2-nottingham-forest-pep-guardiolas-side-blink-first-in-title-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=9772","title":{"rendered":"Man City 2-2 Nottingham Forest: Pep Guardiola&#8217;s side blink first in title race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">January signing Semenyo has hit his stride quickly at City and looked like being a difference-maker in the title race after his winner at Leeds United on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Against Forest, he scored his seventh goal since arriving from Bournemouth to give City a 1-0 advantage at half-time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But a familiar story then unfolded. The statistics show City have dropped off in the second half of matches &#8211; had games finished at half-time, Guardiola&#8217;s side would sit 13 points clear of Arsenal but instead find themselves seven points adrift.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Forest had twice fallen behind but managed to hit back through Morgan Gibbs-White&#8217;s superb instinctive backheel and Elliot Anderson&#8217;s stunning curling effort.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The reaction from the City players at full-time was telling, heads bowed and shoulders slumped in the knowledge that these were two crucial points dropped.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I would like to concede fewer but it&#8217;s not about analysing one specific action,&#8221; said Guardiola. &#8220;I never point fingers at my players. We did everything.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We had the chances at the end and in the first half and the momentum. But something always happens and we could not win.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Arsenal kicked off at the same time as City on Wednesday and capitalised by scraping a 1-0 victory at Brighton.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Arsenal can keep playing badly and winning all they like &#8211; it&#8217;s the others that are faltering,&#8221; former England goalkeeper Rob Green said on BBC Radio 5 Live.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Manchester City are faltering and you just look at this Arsenal side and how they go about winning games, they manage to just grind out results and that&#8217;s all they&#8217;ve done tonight. They don&#8217;t care, they won.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>January signing Semenyo has hit his stride quickly at City and looked like being a difference-maker in the title race after his winner at Leeds United on Saturday. Against Forest, he scored his seventh goal since arriving from Bournemouth to give City a 1-0 advantage at half-time. But a familiar story then unfolded. The statistics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}