Forest won this game on merit. The argument that'll still be running when the Premier League returns on November 21 centers on Liam Delap, and on two of England's wealthiest clubs who decided, one after another, that they could live without him.
⚡ Big upset:Nottingham Forest had a 19% chance before kickoff and beat Man City 3–1.
19%
Manchester City let him leave as an academy kid, sanctioning a £20m sale to Ipswich in the summer of 2024. Chelsea then paid £30m to trigger his release clause a year later, parked him on the bench for a single season, and shipped him out to Nottingham Forest for a club-record fee of around £50m. His value climbed the whole way up while two heavyweights waved him off. On Saturday he scored twice and knocked City over. So much for City and Chelsea's judgment.
Enzo Maresca is the man who personally pitched Delap on signing for Chelsea in 2025. He wanted him, got him, couldn't find a use for him, and watched him sold within a year. Maresca is now Manchester City's manager, and he picked the side that lost at the City Ground. The same mistake, repeated, and this time he watched it from the losing dugout. Tim Sherwood summed up the Chelsea year bluntly: "Chelsea just did not work for him, and that's what happens." Delap made it work somewhere else, against the exact coach who couldn't make it work for him.
The goals themselves told the story of a City collapse as much as a Forest surge. Jair Cunha punished a Joško Gvardiol error inside the opening minutes to end a home goalscoring drought that had become historic: Forest had failed to score at the City Ground all season, five games, a 511-minute wait that only broke here. Delap then sprinted from inside his own half, between two defenders, and finished for 2-0 in the 18th. Rayan Cherki dragged City back to 2-1 just after the hour from a deflected Jérémy Doku cross. Delap restored the two-goal cushion in the 73rd, finishing a rapid counter off the inside of the far post. Erling Haaland started and didn't score; his best chance was cleared off the line by Cunha, the man who'd opened the scoring.
Maybe Delap was always this good, just waiting for a club brave enough to build around his running. Maybe this was one explosive cameo, a striker handed acres of space by a defence intent on gifting goals. Both can be true, and neither rescues anyone in City blue. Forest set up to counter, and City's errors invited it. But a player neither City nor Chelsea could extract a performance from has now produced exactly the performance both of them needed, against a defence picked by the coach who gave up on him. The setup explains the goals. It doesn't explain how two clubs with limitless money kept getting the same assessment wrong.
For Forest this is a legitimate, badly needed win. It lifts them out of the relegation places, up to 16th after this round, and gives them a first home victory of the season after a drought that had turned the City Ground into a punchline. Glasner's players earned it. They led twice and finished City off on the break.
For City it's a third straight league defeat and a gap of six points to Arsenal at the top as the season pauses. They host Fulham when it resumes; Forest go to Bournemouth. Plenty can change.
What won't change is the central embarrassment. Manchester City sold Delap for £20m. Chelsea spent £30m, barely played him, and cashed out at a club-record fee for the buyer within twelve months. The one person who signed off on getting this player wrong twice, for two different clubs, is the man who now runs City's attack. Enzo Maresca lost more than a game at the City Ground. He lost it to his own misjudgment, wearing another club's shirt.
