Manchester City have faced a challenging run of fixtures in recent weeks, suffering consecutive Premier League defeats against Aston Villa and Brighton and Hove Albion before Enzo Maresca's side returned to winning ways in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday.
In their clash with RB Leipzig, City opened the scoring after 37 minutes through a Castello Lukeba own goal. However, Ridle Baku took advantage of Gianluigi Donnarumma's poor goalkeeping to send a low cross into the near post and bring the hosts level.
Less than 10 minutes after conceding the equaliser, City regained their advantage when Enzo Fernandez connected with an excellent cross from Iliman Ndiaye to head home. However, the visitors were once again unable to hold on to their lead, as Antonio Nusa made it 2-2 with less than 30 minutes remaining.
Despite their considerable effort and dominance throughout the match, Leipzig's supporters would have found it particularly frustrating to see Erling Haaland score the winning goal, especially given how much more convincing their side had looked for much of the contest.
While Maresca could certainly take several positives from the performance, it was not quite enough to convince City supporters that their team had fully returned to the right track, particularly when compared with their outstanding 3-0 victory at Anfield last month.
Maresca's hopes of keeping pace with Arsenal during the early stages of the Premier League title race now depend on an important encounter with Nottingham Forest, the side that disrupted Manchester City's ambitions under Pep Guardiola last season.
The Tricky Trees, who featured current Manchester City star Elliot Anderson in midfield, managed to secure a draw despite Guardiola's men taking the lead on two occasions, first through Antoine Semenyo in the opening half and then through Rodri after the break.
However, under Maresca, City travel to the East Midlands boasting an impressive away record and a relatively short injury list. This gives the manager the opportunity to field what would appear to be his strongest available starting XI, despite suggesting on Friday that there is no such thing as a definitive strongest team.
"The important thing is that day after day, I'm knowing the players better. This is the best thing. Then, again, it depends a little bit on the game," Maresca said during a press conference on Friday morning.
"We probably have 60, 65 games, so it's impossible to always use the same players, and I feel lucky because I have so many good players that I can choose which ones we need for different games."
Manchester City are currently pursuing Arsenal at the top of the Premier League standings, sitting second with 21 points from their opening nine matches. This comes after consecutive defeats against Aston Villa and Brighton in recent weeks.
Although Maresca may not approach his squad selection through a straightforward distinction between his strongest and weakest players, the question remains: what would his most formidable starting XI look like on paper?
There may still be some uncertainty surrounding Donnarumma's position as the undisputed first-choice goalkeeper, but the rest of the lineup is relatively straightforward to predict, with Matheus Nunes, Ruben Dias, Marc Guehi and Josko Gvardiol expected to form the defensive unit.
Ayyoub Bouaddi has made an almost flawless start to life in east Manchester, but the midfield partnership of Anderson and Enzo Fernandez appears difficult to overlook. Ahead of them, Jeremy Doku, Rayan Cherki and Iliman Ndiaye would provide the attacking threat.
Finally, Haaland is an obvious choice to lead the line. His place in the starting XI would be considered a priority at almost any major European club, with the possible exceptions of Real Madrid, where Kylian Mbappe occupies that role, and Bayern Munich, who have 2026 Ballon d'Or winner Harry Kane leading their attack.