Nottingham Forest vs Manchester City prediction: Premier League betting tips & odds | OneFootball

Manchester City travel to Nottingham Forest in Saturday’s early kick-off knowing a win would take them back to the top of the Premier League table and put the pressure back on Arsenal (12:30pm, TNT Sports 1 & Discovery+).

City’s run of five straight wins and eight from their last 10 games has seen them close the gap at the top of the league to just two points after 17 games of the season, and we all know what they are capable of.

The last time they won the Premier League title back in 2023/24, they went on a 23-game unbeaten run from December 10 until the end of the season. The only points they dropped came in draws against Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal.

Betting sites have cut City’s odds to win the league for a seventh time under manager Pep Guardiola to 6/4, although Arsenal remain favourites in the Premier League odds.

Nineteen points separate City and Saturday’s opponents, who are 17th in the table, just five points clear of the bottom three.

They have improved significantly, though, since the arrival of manager Sean Dyche, who is the third man in charge at Forest this season, following Nuno Espirito Santo and Ange Postecoglou.

The club had won just one league game before Dyche arrived, which came on the opening day against Brentford. Under Dyche, the Tricky Trees have won seven out of 13 matches, including four victories in the Premier League.

However, Forest did come unstuck at Fulham on Monday night and football betting sites make them sizeable underdogs to end City’s recent good run.

Forest don’t have the best of records against City in recent years, winning just one of their last seven, but that did come in this fixture last season when Callum Hudson-Odoi scored the only goal of the game at the City Ground.

That victory ended a run of nine league games without a win against City, who won seven of those with an aggregate scoreline of 20-3.

City are odds-on for the win with all the Premier League betting sites, but you can get 2/1 on them winning to nil, and since conceding four against Fulham, they have kept four clean sheets in five games. The only goal they conceded came away at Real Madrid in a 2-1 win.

City’s recent upturn in results is down in large part to the form of striker Erling Haaland, who has already scored 38 goals in 28 games for club and country this season.

In the Premier League, he has 19 goals in 17 appearances, including five in his last four matches against Fulham, Sunderland, Crystal Palace and West Ham.

He wasn’t on target in the 3-0 win over Sunderland, but he scored braces in his last two, meaning he has scored two or more 12 times already this season.

His best return was five in one game for Norway, but he is without a hat-trick for City since August 2024, when he scored three for the second game in a row against West Ham. He’s 12/1 to bag a treble on some betting apps.

The 25-year-old did score a hat-trick in this fixture back in August 2022 when City ran out 6-0 winners at home, and he has five goals and one assist in six games against Forest.

Nottingham Forest: Ibrahim Sangare and Willy Boly are away at the Africa Cup of Nations, while Chris Wood and Ryan Yates are sidelined with injury. Ola Aina has a chance to feature, while Mats Selz made his return to the matchday squad in the loss at Fulham and could start against City.

Manchester City: Rodri, John Stones, Oscar Bobb and Jeremy Doku could all miss out through injury once more, while Omar Marmoush and Rayan Ait-Nouri are away at Afcon.

Nottingham Forest: Sels; Williams, Murillo, Milenkovic, Zinchenko; Anderson, Douglas Luiz; Hutchinson, Gibbs-White, Hudson-Odoi; Igor Jesus

Manchester City: Donnarumma; Matheus Nunes, Gvardiol, Dias, O'Reilly; Nico Gonzalez, Bernando Silva, Reijnders; Cherki, Foden; Haaland

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