EVERTON 4, MANCHESTER CITY 0
- Raheem Sterling penalty decision not given
- Everton score with all 4 of their shots on target
- Claudio Bravo has now conceded from the opposition’s first shot on target in four of City’s last seven Premier League games
- Goals for Romelu Lukaku, Kevin Mirallas, Tom Davies, and Ademola Lookman
- Pep Guardiola declares Man City title challenge ‘over’ after his heaviest league defeat
Manchester City were well beaten at Goodison Park as their hosts Everton weathered an early storm by City only to come out 4-0 losers.
Ronald Koeman’s side scored with all four of their shots on target in a game in which they had just 29% of the possession.
Romelu Lukaku, Kevin Mirallas, and teenagers Tom Davies and Ademola Lookman completed the rout of City who had several chances to score in the first half but completely fell to pieces in the second half after Everton showed them what clinical finishing was all about.
“Ten points is a lot of points.” admitted Guardiola of the gap between league leaders Chelsea and Manchester City as he effectively conceded the title race after City’s fifth defeat of the season.
“Of course we can do better.” said Guardiola, “It’s awful for my players. In bad moments you have to be close and I said to the players to be positive.”
City’s second loss in Merseyside this season left them languishing in fifth place with rivals Manchester United snapping at their heels and two points behind fourth placed Arsenal.
“We created a lot of chances to score goals, but every time they arrived they scored a goal. That’s tough.” added the Spaniard.
Guardiola was in no doubt about the problem though, and declared: “We are not strong enough in the boxes. We are a team with a lot of chances but not a lot of goals.”
It was a reaction that we’ve heard before – that chances had been created but not taken.
Despite Guardiola’s assessment, the defending remained an issue for City all afternoon but especially so in the second half as a clinical Everton punished every City mistake with four goals from four chances.
With a week to rest players and prepare for this game, both sides opted for just one change, with City choosing to replace Willy Caballero, who played in City’s 5-0 FA Cup thrashing of West Ham nine days ago, with Claudio Bravo.
Missed chances cost Manchester City at Everton
It could have started so differently after Raheem Sterling raced into the Everton area and appeared to be brought down by Joel Robles but no penalty was given.
There were also solid first half chances for David Silva, Sergio Aguero and Sterling again with a rising drive which went wide.
City paid for their profligacy when Everton scored first after Tom Davies intercepted a pass from Gael Clichy. The youngster found Romelu Lukaku who scored his 13th of the season for the Toffees with ease in the 34th minute.
Bacary Sagna’s header was cleared off the line by Davies after a cross by Clichy found him just before the break.
But City were already 1-0 down before the end of the first half and City’s inability to claw themselves back into the game in the first half saw them completely punished for it in a dire second half performance which only served to highlight the fact that Claudio Bravo isn’t an upgrade on Joe Hart as a pure shot stopper.
City were hit soon after the restart after Ross Barkley found Kevin Mirallas and, despite weak intervention by John Stones – the Belgian winger beat Bravo.
Bravo was beaten again when Davies scored his first goal for Everton after twice beating Yaya Toure in the build-up to slot past Bravo. The goal capped off a fine performance in which
New signing Ademola Lookman came off the bench to complete the rout deep into injury time after John Stones’ clearance ricocheted off Seamus Coleman and the youngster scored from an acute angle