Manchester City have a difficult fixture at Nottingham Forest on Saturday where the hosts have used
Manchester City’s last two trips to the Trent have not been easy.
A 1-1 draw in 2023 put City’s treble chances at risk as Erling Haaland missed a sitter and fumed at his teammates before Chris Wood made them pay with a late equaliser. Kyle Walker called their performance ‘not acceptable’ at both ends but Pep Guardiola went peak Pep Guardiola and called it one of City’s best performances of the season.
Last season, closer to the end of the campaign, Guardiola would hark back to that draw by saying City played better then than in their 2-0 win in 2024. It was a tighter win than the scoreline suggested, with Guardiola curiously saying that the City Ground pitch inadvertently helped his side win even if it disrupted their rhythm.
Wood missed a couple of presentable chances that day, with Guardiola saying: “It was really hard, harder than last season when we drew here. We knew before the game that was going to happen and we were so lucky and fortunate today that the pitch was so dry and high.
“With the chances they had with a better pitch condition they would have scored. We were incredibly fortunate for that. Nothing was wrong with the pitch. It was dry from the weather and the sun and that helped us.
“When we play at home we decide the way we play, when we play away we adapt. We were lucky that the chances they had they could not contact with the ball.”
Clubs have to water their pitches evenly and there are limits on how long or short grass can be cut. But there are ways to bend those rules and maximise home advantage, as Guardiola accepted graciously that afternoon.
But it was still in his mind a few weeks later, when Guardiola prompted his players to train on dry pitches with longer grass ahead of the trip to Fulham, aware of the impact the conditions had at Forest – and perhaps their lack of preparation for it.
“I don’t know about the grass, last season it was so so high and dry,” he said of Craven Cottage. “We have to adapt like with Nottingham.”
The Forest and Fulham games were in April and May, not March like this weekend’s crunch clash, but the weather in the East Midlands is set to be dry and mild before this weekend. So perhaps Guardiola will repeat his training ground trick to avoid another tricky test by the Trent.
Forest are better than the last two times City visited and Guardiola felt those two games more than most en-route to back-to-back titles. Now a top four spot is at risk and Forest are a direct competitor, adding an extra difficulty to an already-difficult assignment.
Nuno Espirito Santo talked up home advantage as an extra boost for the visit of City on Thursday. He was talking about the atmosphere and home comforts but he also knows Forest can disrupt City’s game with how they prepare the pitch, too. Their Champions League chances – and City’s – could come down to how long the ground staff cut the turf in the coming days, and which side takes advantage of those conditions.
