Delap double sinks Manchester City as Nottingham Forest end winless run

Nottingham Forest snapped a five-match winless run in emphatic fashion on Saturday, beating Manchester City 3-1 at the City Ground in Matchweek 10 for its first Premier League home victory of the season and a third straight league defeat for Pep Guardiola's Manchester City.

Centre-back Jair Cunha put Forest ahead in the sixth minute, robbing Josko Gvardiol near the City penalty area before slotting a low shot past goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma. Striker Liam Delap doubled the lead in the 18th minute after City midfielder Iliman Ndiaye lost possession in his own half; Delap ran nearly the length of the field before beating Donnarumma with a finish from the edge of the box, according to ESPN's match report.

City pulled one back in the 52nd minute when Rayan Cherki drove a half-volley into the top corner after Jeremy Doku's low cross deflected into his path. Erling Haaland twice came close to leveling the score, first denied by a goal-line clearance and later curling a shot just over the crossbar. Forest settled the contest in the 73rd minute when Delap finished a length-of-the-pitch breakaway set up by Morgan Gibbs-White, his shot cannoning in off the post, a sequence confirmed in live match data from theScore.

A breakthrough for Delap and Glasner

For Delap, a club-record signing from Chelsea over the summer, the brace was his first multi-goal game for Forest after scoring just once across his first eight appearances. It was also only Forest's second league win of the season and their first at the City Ground since April. The victory offers a rare lift for manager Oliver Glasner, who had won only once in his first nine league matches in charge of a club sitting in the bottom half of the table.

A costly defeat for City

The loss carries heavier weight for Manchester City, which had opened the season as one of the league's most dominant sides before three straight defeats. City's record slipped to seven wins and three losses from ten matches, 21 points, leaving Guardiola's team second in the Premier League table, six points behind leaders Arsenal, who have won nine of their ten games this season. Elsewhere in Saturday's round, Arsenal edged Hull City 1-0, Leeds United beat Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 and Newcastle United drew 1-1 at Fulham.

Both clubs now break for the November international window before domestic action resumes. For Forest, beating a side that had spent much of the autumn near the top of the table offers a genuine marker of progress heading into the pause. For City, the challenge is to stop the bleeding before the gap at the top grows any wider.