Pep Guardiola stated following the game that he felt his side put in a ‘brilliant performance’ but admitted that we were not clinical enough to claim all three points.
Bernardo Silva’s first-half strike had put the Blues ahead and we looked to be leaving the East Midlands with the victory until Forest’s Chris Wood scored a late leveller.
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City dominated much of the proceedings but the points were shared in our first visit to the City Ground since 2001.
Here we’ll take a look at the key stats that tell the story of the day...
Box to box dominance
City had 73% possession, completing 619 of our 726 passes attempted. By comparison, Forest completed just 171 of their 265 passes.
The telling stat in truth, is the number of shots each side had.
City had a total of 23 efforts on goal but only six were on target.
Bernardo‘s Silva’s stunning strike was one of those, while Forest goalkeeper Keylor Navas made five saves. The most notable of those came from Aymeric Laporte‘s header.
Forest had four shots, of which only one was on target - Chris Wood’s close-range goal.
The simple nature of that shot gave Forest a total xG of 0.95 but City were still able to create a much better xG of 2.40.
Competitive spirit
While we may not have been able to convert our chances, it can’t be said that there was a lack of desire from the City players on the pitch.
We won 54% of the duels for loose balls and 58% of the deuls competed for on the ground.
We also took our opponents on a lot, with 14 successful dribbles from 23 attempted. Phil Foden was far out in front on that metric, attempting 10 dribbles.
Kevin De Bruyne (five), Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland (both two) were the only other City players to try more than one.
Chief creators
The old adage suggests that fans should start to worry when a team isn’t creating chances, rather than when they are struggling to take them.
The creative talent on the pitch on Saturday were able to create plenty of openings but weren’t able to take them as they would have hoped.
Jack Grealish created a game-high five chances, including the excellent pass for Bernardo‘s goal.
Kevin De Bruyne was close behind with four chances set up. They chances of a high quality too, with the Belgian ending with an expected assists rating of 0.71 - more than anyone else on the pitch.
In total, nine of our players created at least one opportunity.
Given the number of goals we have scored this season, it is a sign of promise to see the Blues still so creative.
Premier League stats this season
City are still the league’s leading scorers with 60 goals. Having only conceded 24, our goal difference of 36 is also the best in the division.
26 of those 60 have come from Erling Haaland who still leads the scoring charts ahead of Harry Kane (17) in second.
Kevin De Bruyne‘s 12 assists is more than anyone else across the Premier League with Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka next on eight. The Belgian is now on 98 Premier League assists.
Ederson‘s wait for his 100th Premier League clean sheet continues. The Brazilian’s eight clean sheets so far puts him joint fourth in the race for a fourth consecutive Golden Glove.
Rodrigo has played 2,093 passes from 2,371 touches and leads the league for both metrics.
