Smash and grab raid

CITY GET JOB DONE TO KEEP PRESSURE ON LEADERS

- SIMON BAJKOWSKI

MANCHESTER City have certainly worn some eye-catching gear to matches in recent years and nobody would have batted an eyelid if they had walked out of the City Ground wearing gloves and balaclavas.

Nottingham Forest will feel robbed and Pep Guardiola will feel like he has aged a decade, but at the end of a nervy 90 minutes a 2-0 win means the Blues are four games away from history. While Arsenal look like they will push them all the way and remain top after they survived the North London derby, a few more wins will make City champions.

The last time the title race was as close as this, fine margins ultimately proved decisive - think the millimetres the ball was from crossing the line for Liverpool before John Stones cleared it, or the centimetres over the line from Sergio Aguero at Burnley before that was cleared. At the end of this campaign, we could be talking about Murillo's yard.

The Forest centre-back was no more than that from City's goal when the ball bounced for him as Ederson capped off a dismal half by dropping a simple ball in injury time. The defender's eyes lit up and he flicked up a leg, only for the ball to somehow lift as high as the bar and as it flicked the woodwork it carried on its trajectory out of play.