Antoine Semenyo (£8.2m) scored again for Manchester City on Wednesday, but Pep Guardiola’s men dropped potentially crucial points in the Premier League title race.

Here’s what we saw at the Etihad Stadium.

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SEMENYO SCORES AGAIN

Surprise surprise, it was City’s in-form man Semenyo who opened the scoring in Manchester.

The Ghanaian has enjoyed a brilliant start to life in Sky Blue since his January move, scoring seven times in all competitions for his new club, and this latest effort – his 15th Premier League goal of the campaign – was an exceptionally difficult-looking volley to hit, but hit it he did.

Assisting him, meanwhile, was Rayan Cherki (£6.4m), whose dinked cross earned the Frenchman a ninth league assist of the season; that’s the joint second-most in the division behind Bruno Fernandes (£10.0m) despite Cherki having played far, far fewer minutes than his rivals for this stat.

Semenyo – who also created one Opta-defined ‘big chance’ on the night – had earlier rifled into the side netting with the first of his three shots, the last of which clipped the top of the bar from a free-kick in injury time.

HAALAND BLANK

City, in total, had 21 attempts on goal, but only five were on target.

Erling Haaland (£14.6m), to his Fantasy Premier League (FPL) backers’ dismay, was responsible for only two of the former and – according to Opta data – none of the latter.

Back in the starting XI after missing Gameweek 28 with a surprise injury, the big Norwegian hit the side netting in the first half after rounding Matz Sels (£4.6m) and then just after the hour mark saw his other effort deflected out for a corner.

City scored from said corner, Rodri (£6.3m) powering home a dangerous Rayan Ait-Nouri (£5.7m) delivery while Haaland appeared to be pushed over.

PEP ON O’REILLY

So, Haaland returned, but Nico O’Reilly (£5.4m) missed out on the matchday squad.

The versatile young Englishman, an FPL defender, had been shunted into midfield in recent weeks, but he was withdrawn at Leeds United last weekend after hurting his ankle and subsequently played no part against Nottingham Forest.

“Yesterday we had a training session, [O’Reilly] then felt uncomfortable from the knock he got against Leeds. Hopefully he can come back but at the same time it’s happened, in this part of the season everybody is massively important for our experience in the periods where we fight for competitions, everyone is massively important.” – Pep Guardiola on Nico O’Reilly

There was no clearer update than that from the Spaniard, but we will see City in action twice before Gameweek 30’s Saturday night trip to West Ham United: first in the FA Cup fifth round at Newcastle United, then in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie at Real Madrid next Wednesday.

That means there are plenty of opportunities for O’Reilly to return and/or Pep to provide updates on his availability before the next FPL deadline.

At the Etihad this week, O’Reilly was replaced by the ineffectual Phil Foden (£8.1m), whose barren run continued.

GIBBS-WHITE + ANDERSON DELIVER

The chances of a City shut-out vanished thanks to the first of Forest’s two excellent goals, which arrived a few minutes shy of the hour mark.

Against the run of play, Ola Aina (£4.7m) charged forward and crossed from the right, Igor Jesus (£5.8m) knocked it down and Morgan Gibbs-White (£7.3m) deftly backheeled past the helpless Gianluigi Donnarumma (£5.6m).

That was Gibbs-White’s second goal in as many games.

Forest fought for a second equaliser as the clock ticked on, and up stepped Elliot Anderson (£5.4m).

The England international has been an FPL favourite this term largely for his defensive contribution (DefCon) consistency, and not only did he return those with 15 actions on Wednesday after a temporary blip, but he also scored his second Premier League goal of the season.

Together with three bonus points, that all added up to a tidy 12-point score.

It could have been more, too, if second-half sub Ryan Yates (£4.7m) had managed to direct his stoppage time corner delivery (an Opta ‘big chance’) on target rather than nodding wide of the near post.

“He [Gibbs-White] is a special player. He has a lot of quality. He smells the spaces, he smells the opportunities – it was a beautiful goal. But Morgan is not only a fantastic player, he is a leader. He has the character that we need. He is a fighter and this is the spirit I want to see in my team. Murillo was the same at the end. He played at a high level.

“Elliot [Anderson], I thought today that after 60 or 70 minutes I would need to take him off, as I did not believe he would have the energy and intensity that we would need here. But it was a surprise for me, because he had the energy until the end and he has the quality.” – Vitor Pereira