Nottingham Forest claimed a battling point away at Manchester City as Morgan Gibbs-White added another chapter to his own highlight reel.
Gibbs-White equalised in the second half after Antoine Semenyo had fired City into the lead during the opening 45 minutes of the contest.
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Forest went behind when Rodri scored from a set piece shortly after the equaliser, but Elliot Anderson scored to ensure a deserved point for the Reds at the Etihad Stadium.
Vitor Pereira seemed pleased with the point after the contest, and Gibbs-White admitted what the new boss had found tricky since coming into the City Ground hot seat.
Morgan Gibbs-White says so many games haven’t helped Vitor Pereira
In the second half against Brighton – and here against City – Pereira played with three centre-backs and three central midfielders, with the Portuguese boss seemingly preferring that setup.
However, there has been little time for the head coach to prepare his charges to play in that manner with the games coming thick and fast for the Reds.
After the game, Gibbs-White was quizzed on the new manager, and he expressed sympathy for him over the lack of time on the training pitch to implement his new strategy.
He told TNT Sports: “The gaffer’s got a style where he wants us to play football, but because we’ve had so many games, we’ve not really had much time to implement it in training. We’ve had a lot of meetings, but I think it was important tonight to show him that we’re buying into it and we’ve got the fight to pick up more points.”
Pereira now has a big seven days to get to work
All TNT did last night was bang on about the losing streak in the Premier League that Pereira was on, but now that’s ended, he can get to work on the training ground.
The Premier League title is now out of City’s hands after their draw with Forest, and there is a lot of heart that can be taken from this point on the road.
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Forest now have a challenge to back it up, though, and it’s absolutely no good at all if the Reds don’t go and beat Fulham and Tottenham in their next Premier League contests.
Clearly, Forest will get a few days off after this result and rightly so, but after Gibbs-White’s comments regarding the style of play Pereira wants to utilise, the time on the training ground will be very useful.
Forest now have to retain the belief from this performance, keep buying into what Pereira wants and hopefully, push up the Premier League table.
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