De Bruyne leads Manchester City comeback, Forest beaten by Everton
MANCHESTER: Kevin De Bruyne inspired a Manchester City fightback from two goals down to beat Crystal Palace 5-2, while Nottingham Forest’s challenge for a place in next season’s Champions League stumbled after a 1-0 defeat by Everton on Saturday. In De Bruyne’s first appearance at the Etihad Stadium since announcing his decade in Manchester will come to an end at the end of the season, the Belgian rolled back the years to save City’s blushes. Unbeaten in seven games, Palace made the trip north full of confidence and found themselves 2-0 up after 20 minutes. Eberechi Eze slotted home Ismaila Sarr’s pass before Chris Richards took advantage of poor City defending to head in from a corner. Eze had a third goal narrowly ruled out for offside before De Bruyne stirred the City fightback. The 33-year-old fired in a free-kick off the post before heading down for Omar Marmoush to level just three minutes later. City were rampant after the break as De Bruyne teed up Mateo Kovacic on 47 minutes to complete the comeback. Goalkeeper Ederson provided his fourth Premier League assist of the season for James McAtee to make it 4-2 before Nico O’Reilly’s sweet strike rounded off the scoring. Victory lifts Pep Guardiola’s men back into the top four, with the top five in the Premier League this season qualifying for the Champions League thanks to the strong performance of English sides in European competition. Forest remain in third and on course for their first taste of Europe’s elite competition since they were holders in 1980. However, Nuno Espirito Santo’s men have lost their last two games to allow the chasing pack back onto their tails. A forgetful game at the City Ground appeared to be meandering toward a stalemate until Abdoulaye