Champions League qualification is getting tantalizingly close for Nottingham Forest.
For Manchester City, there’s still plenty of work to do.
Forest, a team many might have thought would be battling relegation this season in the Premier League, moved just a point behind second-place Arsenal by beating Ipswich 4-2 on Saturday.
More importantly perhaps for Forest, the gap to City grew to six points after the soon-to-be-deposed champions drew 2-2 at home to Brighton.
City is hanging onto fifth place, which is likely to be the final Champions League qualification position from the Premier League for next season.
Certainly any ambitions for a record-extending fifth straight league title are long gone for City, which is 22 points behind first-place Liverpool with nine games left.
Own-goal costs Man City
City twice took the lead in the first half, through Erling Haaland’s penalty and Omar Marmoush’s fierce outside-of-the-area shot, but was pegged back each time by an opponent also in contention to get into the Champions League.
An own-goal by Abdukodir Khusanov in the 48th ultimately clinched a point for Brighton, which is only a point behind City and could easily have come away from at Etihad Stadium with all three points. Carlos Baleba blasted over the bar from close range with a great late chance for the visitors
“I came from the locker room and it’s a disappointing feeling,” Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler said.
City has won just two of its last six league games and already has conceded 40 league goals, its most in a single campaign in Pep Guardiola’s nine seasons at the club.
“That’s because of something missing,” Guardiola said.
Elanga double for Forest
Anthony Elanga scored twice for Forest, whose other goals came from Nikola Milenkovic and Jota Silva in the latest win on its march back to Europe’s top competition.
Forest famously won the European Cup in 1979 and ’80 under Brian Clough and is close to returning to the competition under Nuno Espirito Santo, who had to steer the team away from relegation danger after being hired midway through last season.
Relegation race close to being settled already
Ipswich, in third-to-last place, dropped nine points adrift of safety after Wolverhampton — the team directly above the relegation zone — won 2-1 at last-place Southampton.
Jørgen Strand Larsen scored both of Wolves’ goals.
Leicester, which is tied for points with Ipswich in 19th place, hosts Manchester United on Sunday and Southampton is destined for the drop a further eight points back.
Everton scored in stoppage time to salvage a 1-1 draw at home to West Ham.
Bournemouth, another unheralded team in contention for Champions League qualification, hosts Brentford in the late game.
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