Enzo Maresca has revealed that Marc Guehi asked to come off at half-time of Man City’s 3-1 defeat at Nottingham Forest because of an injury, days before the centre-back is due to join up with England.
Enzo Maresca did not hide from the performance either when he spoke to Sky Sports after the final whistle. City lost a third Premier League game in a row at the City Ground, and their manager put it down to one thing: Forest won the battles and City did not.
Guehi and Josko Gvardiol were both replaced at the break, with Matheus Nunes and Nico O’Reilly coming on. Maresca explained that neither change was only about form. Gvardiol, he said, had also had a small issue during the week.
What did Maresca say about Guehi and Gvardiol?
Asked about his half-time changes, Maresca told Sky Sports: “Marc Guehi asked for change because of his injury, he had a problem in first half. Josko also during the week he had a small issue.”
That will worry England as much as City. Guehi was named in Thomas Tuchel’s squad for the Nations League games against Croatia and Spain, along with Elliot Anderson, while O’Reilly was left out because, in Maresca’s words, he is not 100 per cent fit. Maresca gave no detail on how serious Guehi’s problem is.
Gvardiol had a night to forget before he went off. He was caught out of position three times in the first six minutes and then lost the ball in his own half for Jair Cunha’s opener.
“We lost all of them”: the duels that cost City
Maresca was clear about where the game was lost. “To be quite clear, first half when you don’t match the intensity, when you lose all the duels it is difficult and then when we want to react it is too late,” he said.
“In this kind of match, first of all you need to match the intensity, you need to try to win duels, otherwise it is always complicated. First half we were not good enough in terms of duels and second ball, we lost all of them. And then we try to react, we were 2-0 down and in football it is always complicated.”
He went through the three goals one by one. “The first one, we are trying to play and build and it can happen. The second one we lost duels in the middle of the pitch and the third one we lost the duels on the edge of their box. We need to match the intensity in these kind of games.”
The numbers back him up. City had 78 per cent of the ball and 753 passes to Forest’s 206, but Forest scored three times from five shots on target. They also outran City by 6km, a figure put to Oliver Glasner after the game.
From seven wins to three defeats
City won their first seven league games of the season. They have now lost three in a row, after defeats to Aston Villa and Brighton, and only Sheffield Wednesday in 1904-05 had done that before in English top-flight history. It is City’s first run of three straight league defeats since they lost four in November and December 2024.
Maresca refused to panic. “We don’t need to wait to concede one or two and then react, we need to start from the beginning,” he said. “It’s football, we won the first seven and that had never happened before and now we have lost three in a row but it’s football. We try to be better game after game.”
You can relive how it unfolded in our Nottingham Forest 3-1 Man City match report, and see who was worst hit in our Man City player ratings vs Forest.
What Glasner said
Glasner, whose side climbed out of the relegation zone with the win, praised the energy of his team and the crowd. “It was a very good day to play Manchester City but, to be honest, today, the energy in the team and at the City Ground was so incredible that it would have been tough for every team in the world to play against us today,” the Nottingham Forest boss told Sky Sports.
He also singled out Liam Delap’s second goal. “Credit to Liam, this strike with his left foot is something you have or you don’t have,” he said.
Is Maresca’s intensity problem a selection problem?
Maresca is right that City lost the duels, but he picked the team that lost them. Gvardiol started after a small issue in the week, and Guehi was carrying a problem by half-time. With O’Reilly not fully fit and Nunes on the bench, City’s defence looked like a group being stretched too far after the trip to Leipzig.
The international break at least gives Maresca time to get bodies back. The bigger worry is Guehi: if he reports to England with an injury, City may not know how bad it is until he comes back.
