Sports
Confirmed line-ups as visitors look to leapfrog Arsenal at Premier League summit
Manchester City travel to the City Ground knowing a victory would take them to the summit of the Premier League, for a few hours at least.
Pep Guardiola’s side come into the game on a five-game winning run in the top flight, having most recently beat 3-0 West Ham on 20 December.
Forest, meanwhile, will be looking to bounce back after a narrow 1-0 defeat to Fulham last time out. The hosts have had something of a resurgence under Sean Dyche and will be aiming to move further clear of the relegation zone with a positive result here.
Read on to see how the two teams line up for this intriguing clash.
Nottingham Forest team news
Dyche makes one change from the side that started against Fulham with Nicolas Dominguez coming in for Douglas Luiz.
Centre-back Willy Boly and midfielder Ibrahim Sangare are at the Africa Cup of Nations 2025 representing Ivory Coast.
Nottingham Forest: John Victor, Savona, Milenkovic, Murillo, Williams, Dominguez, Anderson, Hutchinson, Gibbs-White (C), Hudson-Odoi, Igor Jesus
Subs: Sels, Morato, Awoniyi, Douglas Luiz, Kalimuendo, McAtee, Bakwa, Zinchenko, Abbott
Manchester City team news
Guardiola names the same team that beat the Hammers 3-0 last time out.
Influential midfielder Rodri is named among the substitutes for the first time since featuring against Bournemouth at the beginning of November.
Rayan Ait-Nouri (Algeria) and forward Omar Marmoush are away at AFCON.
Man City: Donnarumma, Nunes, Dias, Gvardiol, O’Reilly, Nico, Bernardo (C), Reijnders, Foden, Cherki, Haaland,
Subs: Trafford, Ake, Rodri, Savinho, Khusanov, McAidoo, Mukasa, Lewis, R. Heskey
How to watch Forest v Man City: TV channel, live online stream
Kick-off on Saturday is at 12:30 GMT (07:30 ET / 04:30 PT). Live TV coverage in the UK is on TNT Sports 1, TNT Sports Ultimate and the Discovery Plus app.
TNT Sports costs £29.99 a month through discovery+, which includes Eurosport and entertainment and is available on a vast range of devices including smart TVs and gaming consoles.
Nottingham Forest v Man City stats
- Having beaten City 1-0 in March, Forest are targeting consecutive league wins in the fixture for the first time since September 1995
- Forest have taken 11 points from their last 12 home matches (W3 D2 L7), with only West Ham (9) and Wolves (8) gaining fewer among sides who were also in the Premier League last season
- They have won their last four Premier League matches played between Christmas and New Year, all under Nuno Espírito Santo in 2023 and 2024
- The most recent of those was on December 29 last year against Dyche’s Everton
- Dyche has lost 14 and drawn two of his meetings with Guardiola. Only Steve Bruce against Alex Ferguson (17) has managed more games against one manager without a single victory in the Premier League
- City have failed to score in half of their Premier League away games against Nottingham Forest (3 of 6) but have avoided defeat when they’ve netted (W2 D1)
- The Cityzens are undefeated in 10 Premier League matches between Christmas and New Year (W8 D2) since losing 3-2 to Wolves on December 27 2019
- They have won each of their last three leage games 3-0, last winning more consecutively without conceding in February 2021 (6)
- No team in English top-flight history has ever won four in a row by at least three goals to nil
- Erling Haaland has five goals in six Premier League appearances versus Nottingham Forest, although 60% of those came in the Norway talisman’s first game against them in August 2022, when he netted a hat-trick from four attempts
- The division top scorer has two goals from 10 shots in his last five games against Forest
- He has 19 goals in 17 Premier League games for Manchester City this season. The only player in the competition’s history to score 20 before the end of the year in a campaign is Haaland himself (21 in 2022/23)
