Hell for Haaland as City pay for failing to finish off Forest
AT one stage, Manchester City envisaged they would be three points ahead with a better goal difference. Arsenal had a game to play but they were dropping points at Aston Villa, so don’t worry about that. But suddenly here we are, once the dust settled on a dramatic day, with City two points behind having played a game more. Missing ridiculous chances — so ridiculous they are not even worth going back over in any detail. It’s safe to say Erling Haaland will never do what he did again. Quite how they didn’t win at Nottingham Forest is a mystery. Pep Guardiola refused to criticise his squad, saying the performance was strong, while Kyle Walker described it as ‘unacceptable’. The truth is probably somewhere in between. It was bad that City didn’t win this game, unforgivable they didn’t leave with the points after dominating a team in the bottom half, but they played well — strangling Forest for so long — and better than many games this season. For the neutral, it can only be of benefit in the title race. There felt an expectation that, after City emerged from the Emirates victorious last week, they would launch themselves into one of those long, unstoppable runs. ‘We didn’t get what we deserved but football is not about what you deserve,’ said Guardiola. ‘You have to score the goals. Phil (Foden) had to score. Haaland had to score. Aymeric (Laporte) had to score. The shots from Kevin (De Bruyne) had to be more accurate.’ Haaland’s miss will find its way on to the compilation reels, although Chris Wood — who stole a point for Forest with his first goal since a move from Newcastle — does not believe it will have a lasting impact. Wood backed him to take out his frustration on RB Leipzig in midweek. ‘Haaland will probably go and score a hat-trick,’ said Wood. ‘It ain’t going to faze him. If you ever live on chances missed or get down about them that’s when you’re on to a losing battle. ‘I’m sure he’s not bothered, he’s done more good than harm in his City career. He’s been fantastic.’ Forest engineered their one big chance with six minutes to go. Steve Cooper had a lengthy debrief with owner Evangelos Marinakis afterwards, and it feels like a club going places after a resurgent few weeks. Wood was signed to keep them up — just as he was at Newcastle last year — but, amid an injury crisis, they face an anxious wait to see if defender Steve Cook
can be added back into their 25-man squad. ‘We applied and got rejected, so now we’ve appealed,’ revealed Cooper. ‘We can’t understand why it’s been rejected, looking at the rules and what has have gone on in previous years. We’re hopeful the appeal is successful. ‘When you read the rules and you look at it, then, yes, we were surprised. There’s a lot of things I could say, but I’m not going to. Hopefully, we will get the written reasons from the Premier League. We’ll remind them of the rules they wrote. Hopefully they stick to the rules and we’ll be okay.’ Cooper praised his players for abandoning their attacking principles in an attempt to stay in the game. Yet it was hard to imagine this result early on, when Foden constantly had the beating of Renan Lodi. Guardiola wants the youngster to re-learn how to slow attacks down. ‘Phil played really good, in the first half he was really aggressive against Lodi,’ said the City boss. ‘He still doesn’t have this pause that he had (before). It’s normal because he didn’t play much, but he was so aggressive. Really good.’