Chris Wood came off the bench to score a late equaliser as Nottingham Forest drew 1-1 against Manchester City in the Premier League (PL), after the Reds had made it a very awkward afternoon for the Citizens on their first visit to the City Ground since 2001.
As was expected, Pep Guardiola’s side took complete control of proceedings from the off.
However, having been swept aside at the Etihad, Forest were putting their bodies on the line as Joe Worrall and Serge Aurier both made important blocks in the opening 10 minutes.
While the hosts’ attacking hopes were always fleeting, they were doing well enough defensively for Kevin De Bruyne to hit two speculative, and ultimately harmless, shots from range as the half-hour mark approached.
City came progressively closer to unlocking the Reds’ defence in the final quarter-hour of the half, with Rodri heading wide, İlkay Gündoğan being denied, and Bernardo Silva’s strike flashing wide of the post.
Undeterred from that near-miss, Silva fired off a first-time effort when Jack Grealish played a perfectly-weighted pass across to him four minutes before the break, finding the target this time to leave Keylor Navas helpless.
Phil Foden had a glorious opportunity shortly after the break when he was slipped through by Gündoğan, but stuck in two minds, he waited too long to roll the ball across to Erling Haaland and allowed Felipe to get across to clear.
Haaland then epitomised City’s frustrations in front of goal as they searched for a second, hitting the crossbar when Foden’s initial shot was saved and smashing his own follow-up over.
Shortly after, Navas made his best save of the game to tip Gündoğan’s free-kick over.
Steve Cooper turned to Chris Wood in an attempt to capitalise on City’s wastefulness and the plan worked perfectly, as the striker popped up at the back post to turn in Morgan Gibbs-White’s low cross and score his first Reds goal, extending Forest’s unbeaten home run to eight PL matches.
Meanwhile, City have now won just one of their last four away games in all competitions and have fallen behind Arsenal just one game after beating the Gunners to go top.
