Pep Guardiola is often accused of coaching the flash and the flair out of his most talented attacking players, ruthlessly wedded to a system that prioritises collective control over moments of individual brilliance.
But as his Manchester City beat Nottingham Forest 2-1 on Saturday, clinching their sixth win in a row in the Premier League to go top — until Arsenal beat Brighton & Hove Albion later in the day — he had the footballing free spirit of Rayan Cherki to thank.
“There are moments that I just want to shout at him,” said Guardiola afterwards with a rueful smile, “and there are moments I want to kiss him.”
The latter came after the Frenchman scored and made an assist to break down a staunch Forest resistance, hammering home a crucial late winner with the flawless technique to which City fans have already become accustomed.
If his swooning before the media wasn’t enough, there is mounting evidence in Guardiola’s tactical approach to suggest that even he is falling for Cherki’s smooth-talking football. Ever since a 3-1 win over Bournemouth in early November — when he started Cherki alongside Phil Foden for the first time — Guardiola has hardly touched his Premier League starting XI, placing emphasis on surrounding the 22-year-old with technical players with whom he can combine.
“I have to allow him to express his incredible talent,” said the City manager. “In the first half, we had too many players behind the ball and fewer in advanced positions in the pocket.”
It was perhaps the clearest expression yet of Guardiola’s appreciation for Cherki’s off-the-cuff creativity against compact defensive sides, and an indication that the manager is doing all he can to nurture that kind of intuitive, touch-tight play.
This is a slight departure for Guardiola, usually a stickler for rehearsed patterns in the final third. But Cherki is helping Guardiola’s side to nick games that even previous iterations of his all-conquering team might not have won.
Cherki’s uncanny ability to make incisive passes in the final third flows from outrageous technical ability with both his left and right feet. But there is also subtlety to the way he moves the ball, frequently looking to set defenders off balance by speeding up, slowing down, and shifting from side to side with tiny touches from every part of his foot.
He created City’s first chance of the game on 20 minutes, spinning a pass with the outside of his boot to allow Erling Haaland to hit a first-time shot, before almost sending the Norwegian through two minutes later with a prodded pass. That was intercepted, but Cherki waits for the exact moment that Neco Williams shifts his body weight towards blocking the pass inside before attempting to go around the outside, forcing the full-back to swing around and produce a dramatic block to stop the ball from going through.
So many of Cherki’s meaningful passes in the final third open up the space for a first-time shot, and it’s little coincidence. There is always consideration when it comes to the weight and angle of his passes into the box, often leaving defenders flat-footed as he surprises them with a quick stabbed pass.
Later in the first half, he finds Tijjani Reijnders in space with a splitting forward pass. He nudges the ball forward, drawing defenders in and waiting for the gap to emerge, before sliding the ball past the outstretched leg.
Though not a difficult pass in isolation, it helped to illustrate the difficulty of reading Cherki. His technical ability allows him to dig out the pass wherever the ball is — under his feet, on his right or left — without giving his intentions away.
For much of the contest, Guardiola’s side struggled to find spaces between the lines of Forest’s compact 4-5-1 shape, as Morgan Gibbs-White dropped into midfield and ensured City’s defenders couldn’t thread the ball through. But it’s games like this in which Cherki’s lock-picking skills come to the fore and he duly provided his seventh assist of the season early in the second half to bring the game to life.
The goal is rooted in understanding, all about instinct and quick thinking. As Cherki receives the pass in a pocket of space, Haaland instantly looks to barge his way into the box, taking centre-back Murillo towards the back post. That opens up the space for Reijnders to attack, a run that is spotted instantly. Again, the pass is perfectly weighted and angled for the Dutchman to finish first time.
Here is that move in video, where the speed of Cherki’s touch and turn, followed by the idea and the killer pass, makes it impossible for the Forest defence to regain their shape.
The pass and finish 🤌
Tijjani Reijnders links up with Rayan Cherki to open the scoring for Man City!@tntsports & @discoveryplusUK pic.twitter.com/Z48lqRFAm4
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) December 27, 2025
And for readers in the U.S.:
Manchester City summer signings Rayan Cherki and Tijjani Reijnders link up for a crucial goal away from home. pic.twitter.com/i0vFUpiP8Q
— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) December 27, 2025
The game opened up as both teams searched for a late winner, and the frantic pace looked to suit Cherki’s ability to dictate the tempo in tight spaces. Before his dramatic winner, he almost grabs another assist after a swirling move involving Bernardo Silva and Foden, dragging the ball after it is flicked behind him, before scooping it into the penalty area and into Foden’s path.
It’s little surprise that Cherki leads the way in the Premier League for chances created, through balls, expected assists (xA) and assists per 90 minutes, with his creativity map below highlighting the numerous corridors from which he can push the ball into the box.
That Cherki can then step up with a winning goal like that is a remarkable bonus. On his supposedly weaker foot — if he has such a thing — the connection is sweet, just as it was as he struck from the edge of the box against Brentford in the Carabao Cup.
Any talk of weaknesses will inevitably return to his off-ball application but in City’s newly settled line-up, with an athletic midfield trio close behind, it has yet to become a noticeable flaw. And, while there is an undeniable swagger to the way he approaches the game, Cherki’s celebration after providing that opening assist points to a player desperate to keep on producing for the team.
City are stockpiling freakish attacking talents who can break down low blocks in different ways, from Jeremy Doku’s relentless dribbling to Haaland’s raw destruction and power. In Cherki, gloriously unpredictable and endlessly inventive, they look to have found another.
