Man City VS Forest: Rodri returned back to the squad, but Forest won last season

Rodri has returned to the Manchester City matchday squad for the first time since featuring against Bournemouth at the beginning of November. The Spaniard has struggled for fitness following a serious ACL injury in the 2-2 draw with Arsenal last September with his late showing in the 3-1 victory over the Cherries last month just his sixth league outing for Pep Guardiola's side.

City looking to go top of the league

City take on Nottingham Forest in Saturday's lunchtime kick off and make the trip to the City Ground just two points behind league leaders Arsenal. Victory over the Tricky Trees will see Pep Guardiola's side leapfrog the Gunners into top spot.

Guardiola is unable to call upon injured quartet Jeremy Doku, John Stones, Oscar Bobb and Mateo Kovacic, while Omar Marmoush and Rayan Ait-Nouri are with Egypt and Algeria, respectively, for the Africa Cup of Nations.

The major boost for Guardiola, though, is the return of Rodri, who'll hope to make just his seventh league appearance of the season.

'Rodri is much, much better'

Guardiola hinted that Rodri would be fit to make the matchday squad against Forest today, telling City's official media channels in a pre-match interview lieu of his usual press conference: "Rodri is much, much better. Available or not, we'll decide today."

City are looking to extend their winning run to seven matches in all competitions against Forest, but is under no illusion as to the difficulty that comes with facing Sean Dyche's Forest side.

"Last season especially with Nuno [Espirito Santo], they made an incredible job there and even before it’s always been a tough place to go, for the crowd and especially for the quality they have.

"They’re a team who’s invested a lot in the last years after being promoted to the Premier League. They’re a really, really good side."

City's starting lineup in full

Guardiola named an unchanged side for the trip to Forest as the Spaniard places faith in the same XI that started the 3-0 win over West Ham last weekend. That means Gianluigi Donnarumma starts between the sticks for City.

Matheus Nunes, Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol and Nico O'Reilly feature in defence, with a midfield trio of Nico Gonzalez, Bernardo Silva and Tijjani Reijnders. Phil Foden and Rayan Cherki flank Erling Haaland on the frontline.

Forest won this game last season

A win for City at Forest would see the Manchester giants go one point clear of Arsenal at the top of the Premier League table ahead of the Gunners' welcome of Brighton later today.

Forest, meanwhile, are looking to pull clear of West Ham at the bottom of the table as they aim to respond to their 1-0 loss to Fulham last time out. Dyche's side have won two of their last three at home and beat City in this fixture last season courtesy of a late Callum Hudson-Odoi strike.