Everton v Manchester City : Match Preview

Another away game against a powerful team of strong running in a inhospitable environment, but this time the opponents for Manchester City are Everton.

Travelling away to Merseyside is always a bind for Manchester City fans as the alien territory up the East Lancs Road is explored. The fact it is Everton we are facing and not Liverpool does not always feel like a bonus. Goodison Park is an old ground, of tight stands and stanchions obscuring the views. The crowd almost sit on top of the players and their braying and demanding of attacking football echoes through the stadium.

City arrive on Merseyside on a relative high, where the performance against Norwich can be consigned forever to the history books as some kind of aberration. The lunacy of the 8-0 demolition of Watford may even still be ringing in our ears. Yet we will need to turn our attentions quickly to the matter at hand, rather than celebrating past victories.

Everton are on a poor run of form and in many ways the fortunes of many of the team and especially the manager, Marco Silva, seem tied up in needing a result of some positive kind against City. Everton are a club seemingly without any grand strategy and their massive investment teeters on the brink. A reward is needed quickly otherwise it may be curtains.

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A victory over 10 man Wolves is all they have to show for a run of fixtures which has also included Aston Villa, Bournemouth and Sheffield United. In this period, many of their star players have not turned up sufficiently to make any concerted difference. Of course against us this is likely to be different as most teams have a tendency to play the ball around better than they ever have before!

Everyone has a tendency to raise their game when facing the Champions and Everton will be no exception. Interestingly they offer in Richarlison and Calvert-Lewin some direct physical threat which may well cause our defence some problems. City will need to be on the front foot and not to be distracted even if we concede. We should have the strength and ability to overcome.

But as a city fan I still vividly remember the 4-0 defeat at Goodison in 2017 and I hope Pep does too.

Predicted Starting XI

Ederson

Walker, Otamendi, Fernandinho, Mendy

Rodri, De Bruyne, Gundogan

Sterling, Aguero, Mahrez