Forest getting close to Champions League, struggling City held by Brighton

Champions League qualification is getting tantalizingly close for Nottingham Forest.

For Manchester City, there's still plenty of work to do.

Forest, a team many might have thought would be battling relegation this season in the Premier League, moved just a point behind second-place Arsenal by beating Ipswich 4-2 on Saturday.

More importantly perhaps for Forest, the gap to City grew to six points after the soon-to-be-deposed champions drew 2-2 at home to Brighton.

City is hanging onto fifth place, which is likely to be the final Champions League qualification position from the Premier League for next season.

Certainly any ambitions for a record-extending fifth straight league title are long gone for City, which is 22 points behind first-place Liverpool with nine games left.

Own-goal costs Man City

City twice took the lead in the first half, through Erling Haaland's penalty and Omar Marmoush's fierce outside-of-the-area shot, but was pegged back each time by an opponent also in contention to get into the Champions League.

An own-goal by Abdukodir Khusanov in the 48th ultimately clinched a point for Brighton, which is only a point behind City and could easily have come away from at Etihad Stadium with all three points. Carlos Baleba blasted over the bar from close range with a great late chance for the visitors

“I came from the locker room and it’s a disappointing feeling," Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler said.

City has won just two of its last six league games and already has conceded 40 league goals, its most in a single campaign in Pep Guardiola's nine seasons at the club.

“That’s because of something missing,” said Guardiola, who acknowledged that he could sense a nervousness in the crowd.

“Yes definitely,” he said. “Everybody feels the pressure."

Elanga double for Forest

Anthony Elanga scored twice for Forest, whose other goals came from Nikola Milenkovic and Jota Silva in the latest win on its march back to Europe's top competition.

Forest famously won the European Cup in 1979 and ’80 under Brian Clough and is close to returning to the competition under Nuno Espirito Santo, who had to steer the team away from relegation danger after being hired midway through last season.

Nuno wasn't getting carried away, though.

“You know what I think about the table,” he said. “What we have (to do) is to focus on ourselves, focus on ourselves. Work as much as we can because there is a lot of football to be played yet."

Relegation race close to being settled already

Ipswich, in third-to-last place, dropped nine points adrift of safety after Wolverhampton — the team directly above the relegation zone — won 2-1 at last-place Southampton.

Jørgen Strand Larsen scored both of Wolves' goals.

Leicester, which is tied for points with Ipswich in 19th place, hosts Manchester United on Sunday and Southampton is destined for the drop a further eight points back.

Bournemouth had been another unheralded team in contention for Champions League qualification but is starting to fade, dropping to ninth with a 2-1 home loss to Brentford.

Bournemouth hasn't won any of its last four league games, or five in all competitions, though is still only four points behind Man City — its opponent in the FA Cup quarterfinals at the end of the month.

Everton scored in stoppage time through Jake O'Brien to salvage a 1-1 draw at home to West Ham.

___

Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

___

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer