- ‘You need desire and intensity … we didn’t match them’
City have now lost three successive league matches
Enzo Maresca blamed his side’s lack of desire and the way they were outgunned in duels for a third successive Premier League defeat. After winning their first seven games of the season, Manchester City’s 3-1 loss at Nottingham Forest extended their poor run.
Jair Cunha dispossessed Josko Gvardiol to score the opener, then Liam Delap struck twice with muscular surges on the break as Forest won their first home league game since April. “Today I think [the problem] has been general,” said Maresca. “It’s not about one player. In the first half we lost all the duels, all the contacts. Against this team, that is fighting relegation, if you don’t match them … it’s something we need to understand. In this kind of game, if you’re not able to win duels and second balls like in the first half, you struggle.