Football writer Tom Hancock reviews Manchester City's 2-0 FA Cup semi-final victory over Nottingham Forest.
Nottingham Forest 0-2 Manchester City
Manchester City kept alive their last chance of silverware in 2024/25 by beating Nottingham Forest to set up an FA Cup final against Crystal Palace.
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Rico Lewis and Josko Gvardiol found the net for seven-time FA Cup winners Man City, who booked their return to Wembley next month for a third straight final — having defeated Manchester United in 2023 before falling to their rivals in 2024.
In a first half during which Forest failed to register a single shot, it took City less than two minutes to get their noses in front. Lewis met Mateo Kovacic’s pass to score from 20 yards and bag his fifth goal for his boyhood club.
Pep Guardiola’s side dominated the opening 45 minutes at Wembley, with Forest’s only opening of note seeing Chris Wood have his close-range effort well-blocked by Gvardiol, although the flag had gone up for offside against Callum Hudson-Odoi.
Nuno Espirito Santo reacted at half-time by withdrawing Danilo and bringing on Anthony Elanga to give Forest greater width, and it almost paid immediate dividends, as Elanga - with his side’s first attempt of the game - fired wide from Hudson-Odoi’s low cross.
And that miss came back to haunt Forest mere minutes later, as Gvardiol doubled City’s lead with an emphatic header from Omar Marmoush’s corner.
The centre-back went more or less unchallenged, rising to notch his sixth goal of the season as Forest goalkeeper Matz Sels, who had brilliantly denied Matheus Nunes moments earlier, appeared to be caught in two minds as to whether to come and claim the ball.
Marmoush forced another good save out of Sels shortly after the hour mark, as City pushed to extinguish any lingering Forest hope, before captain Morgan Gibbs-White came agonisingly close to halving the deficit by rattling the crossbar with a sumptuously volley from just inside the box.
If that was unlucky, Gibbs-White really ought to have done better soon after, as he pounced on a mistake by Gvardiol. The midfielder rounded City goalkeeper Stefan Ortega but took a heavy touch and could only hit the inside of the post while shooting at an open goal, albeit from a tight angle.
It seemed that it was simply not going to be Forest’s day, a feeling which was only amplified when they hit the woodwork for a third time on 80 minutes. Substitute Taiwo Awoniyi struck the same upright as Gibbs-White.
City were ultimately able to see out the tie in comfort and in doing so, they made it four consecutive wins in all competitions for the first time since October, as well as going some way to avenging March’s 1-0 Premier League defeat at Forest.
They won’t retain their Premier League title, but Guardiola’s men could yet finish a difficult season with FA Cup glory and Champions League qualification, the latter of which will be Forest’s sole focus for the remaining five games of their league campaign, starting at home to Brentford on Thursday night.
The 2024/25 FA Cup final between Crystal Palace and Man City will be played at Wembley on Saturday 17 May.
See: Forest report | Man City report