Pep Guardiola confirms £250,000-a-week Manchester City star won’t play vs Nottingham Forest

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Nottingham Forest face a formidable trip to Manchester City tomorrow night looking to go above the champions in the Premier League table.

A rotten run for City has seen them slip 11 points behind the leaders Liverpool and Pep Guardiola’s monopoly on the title looks to be evaporating.

City won’t be focused on the title anymore and first things first for them is a home game with Forest and Guardiola will simply want to win that game.

Forest beat Ipswich 1-0 on Saturday to get back to winning ways after defeats against Newcastle and Arsenal in successive games.

Chris Wood equalled Bryan Roy’s goalscoring record during the victory and he will hope to take the record before the season ends.

Forest have a clean bill of health it would seem ahead of the game against City and Guardiola is unable to say the same about his squad.

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Pep Guardiola confirms Manchester City star won’t play vs Forest

Whichever players Guardiola puts on the pitch tomorrow night will almost certainly have cost more than their opposite numbers in the Forest team.

As a result and despite City’s bad form at the moment, Forest still need to hope that the opposition have an off day and the Reds produce a perfect performance.

One man who won’t make the Forest game is £250,000-a-week defender, John Stones who has been ruled out through injury.

The City boss told the Manchester Evening News that Stones won’t be available to play Forest but he is improving all the time and could return next week.

Forest must take on City with belief and solidity

When Forest beat Liverpool earlier this season, it was the perfect performance with the Reds stifling the Reds and hitting them superbly well on the counter.

Nuno Espirito Santo will be under no illusions of the size of the task at hand tomorrow night but with points on the board, it’s a game to look forward to.

Forest know that winning games of football is something that they are now capable of in this league and it might actually be a good time to play Manchester City.

Stones is one player who won’t feature against Forest tomorrow and it will be fascinating to see what the Reds can do at the Etihad Stadium against a team short on confidence at the moment.