Oliver Glasner says Nottingham Forest beat Man City the only way it can be done: by running, defending with discipline and picking the right moments to break.
Forest’s 3-1 win at the City Ground on Saturday was their first home win of the season, and it handed Manchester City a third straight Premier League defeat. Jair Cunha and Liam Delap had the hosts two up inside 18 minutes, Rayan Cherki pulled one back with a half volley early in the second half, and Delap finished a counter-attack to settle it.
Two days on, the Forest boss has explained exactly how his side did it, and his description matches what Jeremy Doku and Enzo Maresca said went wrong for City.
Why Glasner thinks there is only one way to beat City
Oliver Glasner did not pretend his side had outplayed City. He started by explaining why they are so hard to face.
“I think it is the only way you can beat Man City. They’re so good, such great players, such a good structure and they move the ball so quickly. They can play through the middle, they have incredible dribblers on the wing and they have such pace. Then, of course, they have Haaland in the middle,” Glasner said after the game.
His answer to that was not simply to sit deep and hope. “You should control everything and if you want to control it, you have to run because you have to be so quickly aware. Of course you can just defend but you also need to go forward and this is what we did today in the right moments, we scored the goals in the right moments and credit again to the players,” he added.
Nottingham Forest 3-1 Man City: a plan built without the ball
The numbers back him up. City had 78 per cent of the ball, as our Nottingham Forest 3-1 Man City match report showed, but both first-half goals came from Maresca’s side losing the ball in their own half. Cunha’s opener came after Josko Gvardiol was robbed in the sixth minute, and Delap’s second followed Elliot Anderson being caught in midfield.
Glasner was honest that it was not a pretty display. “I think we’ve had better performances in possession because today we rarely had the ball. Regarding the team spirit, the energy, I think it was our best game,” he said.
He went further on the defending. “The way we play football I think we’ve had many better games but how we defended, how passionately we defended, how tactically smart we defended, it was one of our better games.”
The Austrian also gave credit to the crowd for getting Nottingham Forest through City’s spell of pressure after Cherki’s goal. “We had moments to suffer but then we could rely on our fans pushing us, supporting us. Amazing goals and such a great team effort today so really proud,” he said, while adding that nobody can plan to win 3-1 against City.
What did Doku and Maresca say went wrong?
From the City side, the story was the same, just told the other way round. Doku admitted the first half decided the game. “First half we were behind 2-0, playing away to a side like this and losing 2-0 is making things difficult for ourselves,” he said.
The Belgian winger would not use the fixture list as an excuse either. “We are used to playing every two days. That’s not a reason. If you ask me for the reason for our first half I don’t know. We go behind very early in the game and that changes a lot. We reacted too late. If we had started the game like this it would have been different.”
He also put his finger on how the third goal came. “We played without brakes, we were very offensive and tried to create things. We scored early but a team like this are very dangerous on counter attacks.”
Maresca used the same word as Glasner. “In the first half when you do not match the intensity and lose all the duels, it is difficult. Then we want to react, but it is too late,” the City head coach said.
Seven wins, then three defeats
City won their first seven league games of the season and have now lost three in a row, which leaves them six points behind leaders Arsenal. Brighton’s win over Brentford on Sunday also pushed Maresca’s side down to third. “We won seven in a row and now we lost three in a row, so we need balance in that,” Maresca said, adding that he will use the international break to work out what needs to change.
Verdict: City have been shown the blueprint, now they need an answer
What stands out is how openly Glasner laid it out. Run hard, stay compact, win the duels and wait for City to give the ball away. That is not a secret, but City handed Forest exactly the moments they were waiting for, and every side that plays them before Christmas will have watched it.
Doku called the international break the right moment to “analyse and come back refreshed”, and he is right. Maresca has injuries to deal with as well, with Marc Guehi facing a hip scan, so the fix has to come on the training ground. The first test is Fulham at the Etihad on Saturday 21 November at 12.30pm. If City start that game the way they finished at the City Ground, the losing run should end there. If they start it the way they did on Saturday, Glasner will not be the last manager explaining how it was done.
