Judging by the way Gianluigi Donnarumma and his teammates celebrated Rayan Cherki’s sweet late winner at Nottingham Forest, this was a significant victory for Manchester City. Donnarumma hurtled 40 yards towards the away technical area where Pep Guardiola was mobbed by his coaching staff, including Pep Lijnders and the set-piece coach James French, the architect behind Phil Foden’s corner that led to the goal that extended their winning run to eight matches. Then for a moment of calm, Cherki mimicked Erling Haaland’s meditation pose on the City Ground turf.
It is now six wins in a row in the Premier League, the kind of ominous run they had not stitched together since winning their final nine matches of 2023-24. Everyone knows how that finished, City pipping Arsenal to the title by two points. This was anything but a straightforward victory, the City centre-backs Rúben Dias and Josko Gvardiol unusually ruffled by the Forest striker Igor Jesus; Dias was fortunate to finish an entertaining match with only a caution and Gvardiol got off the hook altogether.
Sean Dyche, the Forest manager, was adamant Morgan Gibbs-White was impeded in the buildup to Cherki’s winner, a first-time strike that whistled through the legs of the Forest captain and low into the corner of past John Victor. Gibbs-White went to ground under pressure from Nico O’Reilly before an unmarked Gvardiol cushioned the ball into the path of Cherki who, just inside Forest’s 18-yard box, struck to maintain his sparkling form. Dyche felt the officials should have intervened: “It was such an easy game to referee, in my opinion, such an easy decision for VAR.”
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