Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Cherki scored second-half goals to secure a 2-1 win for Manchester City in a tight Premier League encounter with Nottingham Forest at the City Ground.
Rayan Cherki was involved in both of Manchester City’s goals as Pep Guardiola’s side moved temporarily back to the top of the Premier League with a 2-1 win at Nottingham Forest.
After assisting Tijjani Reijnders’ opener just minutes into the second half, Cherki scored himself late on to secure all three points in a tight game at the City Ground.
It was a disappointing first half overall, despite plenty of huff and puff from players on both teams. There wasn’t a single shot on target from either side in the opening 45 minutes, arguably more surprising for Man City, who went without one before half-time in a Premier League match for the first time in a year (December 2024 vs Liverpool).
There was drama within 18 seconds of the restart, when Rúben Dias – already cautioned in the first half – brought down Igor Jesus on the edge of the box, but escaped a second yellow card despite most expecting referee Robert Jones to brandish it followed by a red to the Portuguese defender.
That decision was to prove even bigger just over a minute later, when Man City went down the other end and opened the scoring with their first shot on target in the match.
Reijnders ran on to a neat pass inside the box from Cherki before slotting the ball under John Victor to score his fourth goal of 2025-26 and net for a second game in a row. For the creator Cherki, that took him on to seven Premier League assists for the season, more than any other player.
It didn’t take long for Forest to draw themselves back level, however. Omari Hutchinson scored his first goal for the club since signing from Ipswich Town in the summer, meeting a cross from the hard-working Jesus to side-foot a shot past a scrambling Gianluigi Donnarumma.
Hutchinson’s strike was just his fourth in the Premier League, but all four have come in home games versus ‘big six’ sides – clearly a player for the big occasion.
It was left to the exceptional Cherki to win the game with just seven minutes remaining with the Frenchman hitting a powerful shot into the bottom corner, after a clever corner routine saw Josko Gvardiol peel off to the back post before heading into the path of the goalscorer to strike.
City’s summer signing from Lyon is really starting to find his form in England after a slow start. Since the start of November, only Erling Haaland (11 – 8 goals, 3 assists) and Bruno Fernandes (9 – 3 goals, 6 assists) have been involved in more Premier League goals than Cherki (8 – 1 goal, 7 assists). Overall, the winning goal took Cherki on to 50 goal involvements across Europe’s big five leagues during his career (16 goals, 34 assists).
A win sees City move a point ahead of Arsenal in the table, but with the Gunners hosting Brighton just an hour after this game concluded, they seem unlikely to stay there. Nonetheless, Guardiola’s side continue to put extreme pressure on an Arsenal side that haven’t won a league title since 2004.
Defeat for Forest means that manager Sean Dyche remains winless in all 17 of his Premier League matches against Pep Guardiola (D2 L14), equalling Steve Bruce’s record against Alex Ferguson (17) for the most games against one manager without a single victory in the Premier League.
Our Opta match centre delivers you all the Nottingham Forest vs Manchester City stats from their Premier League meeting at the City Ground on 27 December 2025.
The match centre below includes team and player stats, expected goals data, passing networks, an Opta chalkboard and more. It gives you everything you need to do your own match analysis.
Underneath the match centre you can find the official Opta stats on the game as well.
Nottingham Forest 1-2 Manchester City Post-Match Stats
Sean Dyche has lost back-to-back Premier League matches for the first time with Nottingham Forest, while he has failed to win any of his 17 Premier League meetings with Man City’s Pep Guardiola (D2 L15), the joint-most one manager has faced another without ever winning in the competition (alongside Steve Bruce vs Alex Ferguson). Man City have won six consecutive Premier League games in the same season for the first time since winning their final nine matches of the 2023-24 campaign. Tijjani Reijnders has scored in consecutive league appearances for the first time since January/February this year for Milan against Parma and Internazionale. Since they returned to the Premier League in 2022-23, Forest have conceded more goals in the final 15 minutes of matches than any other side (53).Enjoy this? Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
Nottingham Forest 1-2 Manchester City Stats: Cherki Winner Increases Pressure on Arsenal in Title Race Opta Analyst.
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