Man City 2-2 Nottingham Forest: Pep Guardiola’s side flashes first in the title race

Semenyu, who joined in January, has hit his stride with City and looked like a difference-maker in the title race after beating Leeds United on Saturday.

Against Forest, he scored his seventh goal since arriving from Bournemouth to give City a 1-0 lead at half-time.

But then a familiar story unfolded. The statistics show that City have fallen behind in the second half of matches – had the matches ended at half-time, Guardiola’s side would have been 13 points ahead of Arsenal, but instead find themselves seven points behind.

Forest fell behind twice but managed to hit back through Morgan Gibbs-White’s brilliant instinctive back-heel strike and Elliot Anderson’s stunning effort into the net.

The reaction from City’s players throughout was clear, with heads bowed and shoulders slumped at the knowledge that those two crucial points had been squandered.

“I would like to concede fewer goals, but it’s not about analyzing one specific behavior,” Guardiola said. “I never point fingers at the players. We did everything.

“We had chances at the end and in the first half and momentum. But something always happens and we couldn’t win.”

Arsenal started at the same time as City on Wednesday and benefited from a 1-0 win over Brighton.

Former England goalkeeper Rob Green told BBC Radio 5 Live: “Arsenal can continue to play poorly and win everything they want, but it is the others who falter.”

“Manchester City are struggling and you just look at Arsenal and how they win games. They get results and that’s all they did tonight. They don’t care, they won.”