The Premier League title will be on the line Sunday when Manchester City travels to the City Ground to take on Nottingham Forest.

Nottingham Forest is deep in the relegation fight after losing 2-0 at Everton over the weekend. They have been hit with a four-point deduction for breaching FFP rules, which could get reduced on appeal. In any case, they have a massive opportunity Sunday to not only get out of the relegation zone, but to cause a major upheaval in the title race.

Manchester City breezed past Brighton 4-0 on Thursday to hold serve in the title race. The fixtures are piling up for Manchester City, which is now going to play its eighth match in 25 days. They also may be without star striker Erling Haaland, so this will be a tricky spot for Pep Guardiola's men.

Let's break this one down in our Nottingham Forest vs. Many City preview and prediction.

Something that both of those teams did was not stay passive in their low defensive blocks, but instead press City aggressively from their defensive shape and try to force them into some turnovers and look to transition from deep. Nottingham Forest under Nuno Espírito Santo has been more willing to press from its defensive block. Their PPDA under him is 15.2, compared to under Steve Cooper, where they were the most passive team in the league at 18.8.

They are really good in their low defensive block too. The Trees are second in the Premier League in final third to box entry conversion rate, allowing their opponents inside their penalty area at only a 25.6% rate once they enter the final third. Their defense is also only allowing 1.14 xG per 90 minutes at the City Ground this season.

Nottingham Forest is about as direct as it gets in the Premier League and also has the pace with Morgan Gibbs-White, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Anthony Elanga, etc. to give City a lot of problems. Since Espírito Santo has taken over, the offensive performances have improved, as they are averaging 1.45 xG per 90 minutes.

Nottingham Forest has also played much better at the City Ground this season than on road, as it has a +2.6 xGD at home and has only been beaten by more than one goal at home once in a match against Tottenham in which the xG battle was dead even.

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The context of recent results is really important when discussing Manchester City. Saying they are going to "run away with the title" after beating Brighton 4-0 is a very ill-informed statement. Yes, they looked great, but they were also facing an opponent that went with a suicidal approach out of possession that any decent build-up team would exploit.

Brighton decided to mark Manchester City man-to-man across the pitch, but they really weren't that aggressive with it, so City was able to use different rotations and some great ball carrying to completely rip apart the entire system on its way to scoring four goals off only 1.4 expected goals. Five days before that, they played a Chelsea team that played a very active 4-2-4 low block that gave them all sorts of problems — and even though they ended up winning the match 1-0, before the 83rd-minute winner from Bernardo Silva, City had only created 0.52 expected goals.

What the 4-2-4 low block did was allowed Chelsea to press City once it entered the final third, and if they were able to win the ball, it allowed them to have 4 vs. 3 break in transition, which is something Manchester City has really struggled with recently.

The principle is that you use your two forwards to block the passes into the double pivot and the 8s.

But that if you do win the ball, then you have a 4v3 overload (or 4v4 matchup if they drop a pivot out) against the City back line: pic.twitter.com/qGRFQqs0xi

— Jon Mackenzie (@Jon_Mackenzie) April 22, 2024

Nottingham Forest is about a low of a block as it gets in the Premier League, and it is not going to approach this match with the same plan out of possession that Brighton did. So, we now have to start questioning whether Manchester City is not only able to effectively break down good low blocks, but does it still have problems defending in transition against the pace that Nottingham Forest has.

It also looks like Haaland is going to miss this match, which is a pretty massive loss when you are trying to break down a low block. Haaland is averaging 0.97 xG per 90 minutes, while his replacement Julián Álvarez is only at a 0.42 xG per 90 minutes.

Prediction

What Saturday against Chelsea and against Real Madrid in the Champions League showed is Manchester City is kind of struggling to break down low blocks. It failed to create over one expected goal against Chelsea, and although they created some chances against Real Madrid, for large stretches against they were struggling to find space.

This match is not going to be like the Brighton match on Thursday. Nottingham Forest is going to sit deep and come with the same game plan as Chelsea had in the FA Cup semifinals and force City to break it down — and City is most likely not going to have Haaland.

I only have Manchester City’s spread projected at -0.85, so I like the value on Nottingham Forest +1.5 at -102.

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