Mersey Paradise: Everton 0 Manchester City 2

When they write the history books and upload all the results from this season onto wikipedia, the only thing that will matter will be Manchester City won by two goals.

Before the game started we all knew how this kind of fixture would be likely to play out. A plucky and spirited Everton side would put their recent poor form to one side and would deliver a top notch performance of pressing and harrying to try to frustrate a Manchester City side who had so far only sparkled intermittently in recent months. Sky would no doubt show this pre match build up with a graphic showing Everton’s squad cost £12.50 against City’s which cost the same as the GDP of America.

From kick off Everton did their best to follow the script. The fact they were actually having a go created some consternation amongst City fans who thought Everton’s hatred of Liverpool would be so great they would score an own goal every 30 seconds. So to see an engaged and committed Everton performance was disappointing and that more than anything would make me call for the head of Marco Silva if I was an Everton fan.

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Guardiola made some changes to his side – Laporte and Stones returned to the defence. Sterling to the attack. De Bruyne got the chance to have a rest in preparation for the Chelsea game at the weekend. The chopping of the team did not have any discernible effect upon the team.

City tried to keep the ball and press and probe to create openings, but many of these were not taken and the longer the game went on the more anxiety crept into the hearts of City fans. City were denied what looked a certain penalty after Gundogan was fouled in the box, but it was not given. Shortly after another Sane run was ruled out for offside and it was beginning to feel that this profilgracy in front of goal would prove costly.

And then the game turned in injury time in the first half as City won a foul on the left hand side of the pitch and Gundogan whipped in a dipping coss which was met firmly by Aymeric Laporte for his 5th goal of the campaign so far. After the restart City looked a little more unsettled but they competed for every ball and seemed to be grinding out a result.

The second goal came late in the day. In the 97th minute Kevin De Bruyne threaded a pass through to Gabriel Jesus who struck a sweet shot directly at the keeper. The ball rebounded up in the air and Jesus reacted quickest to head the ball straight into the net. After the restart there was neither enough time to celebrate the goal before the full time whistle was broken, or concoct a chant about Liverpool fans and their entitlement beliefs.

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All in all there was something more comfortable watching City grind out a game. So far we have blasted teams apart so finding that this is a team who can grind was important if we are to stay in all 4 major competitions.Now for the first time we can look ahead to Chelsea and hope that we will be able to put pressure on Liverpool in the days ahead.

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