Manchester City got back to what works, they made the chances to win with style and took a step in the right direction. Still, it was not enough to end Pep Guardiola’s agonies in a 1-1 draw with Everton at home. One win in 13, the title race now an irrelevance, a scrap to reach the Champions League seemingly inevitable: City are trapped in the same old story.
Perhaps when they do eventually pull themselves out of their tailspin this game will take on a different context. This might go down as the moment where City’s performances turned from utterly inadequate into a vaguely reasonable representation of the talent that was still available to Guardiola. On Boxing Day, the champions started doing some of the things they really needed to be doing months ago: the shots were coming (albeit not to the guy who is supposed to get them), the shape looked a bit more identifiably City, the attacking responsibilities shared more equally than that time they kept hoofing the ball to Jack Grealish.
Equally, no one would confuse this team with a serious member of the European elite, let alone a proper City team. A stunner from Iliman Ndiaye might have cancelled out the opener forced by Bernardo Silva but Everton had their openings on the break. The defense is not what it was. Perhaps it never will be until Rodri is back. Certainly, it would help no end if Ruben Dias and a proper Kyle Walker were around.
At least the attack was improving. After getting bogged down in the midfield mulch at Villa Park on Saturday, Pep Guardiola shuffled his pack. Perhaps we are simply at the point of this crisis where something has to change every game because nothing is really working right now. What he fell down on might be something like the template for the weeks ahead though.
Two wingers, two natural attacking midfielders, an awful lot of pressure on the holding midfielder (Mateo Kovacic). You’ve seen this City before. You’ve seen it work better than this too but there were flashes of that team you knew. None were more apparent than those involving Bernardo Silva, back to something like his quicksilver best. Everyone has their favorite version of Silva, for this writer he cannot be beaten on the left side of midfield, ducking inside and outside of his winger, a byline threat who can use guile rather than pace to get beyond his man.
It was from there that City got their opener. Jeremy Doku’s drive infield caught the attention of James Tarkowski. At the moment the center back’s eyes up the winger’s run Silva is bursting between him and the other center back. Jarrad Branthwaite has to dive in to stop the cross shot getting towards Savinho at the back post and is unlucky that as the ball hits him it bends towards goal but this is the sort of misfortune City tend to enforce on their opponents.
The man who took Silva’s place on the right flank was no less effective. This was the Savinho of the late summer, drawing multiple defenders to him and blowing by them to get into prime positions. Perhaps if in some of those he had played another pass rather than unleashing one of his seven shots City would have been better off. But how reassuring for Guardiola must it be to see a player in sky blue actually create shots for themselves?
Even those effective adjustments came with their drawbacks, however. As Silva gravitated further to the left flank, Doku felt compelled to move infield. Robbed of space to accelerate into he was at best a non-factor in this game, as was his replacement Kevin De Bruyne. The same could be said of Phil Foden. His first goal of the season hasn’t fixed a wonky shooting radar, if anything his season has now been defined by the profligacy that saw nice build-up play and a smart Erling Haaland flick roll across his boots.
Then there is Haaland himself. He might not be enamored with his broader performances this season but it is hard to know what more he can do. The No. 9 is notably more involved in buildup, acting as more of a reference point that the concluder of matters that he is with City at their best. For the third time in five Premier League games, Haaland ended up with as many chances created as he had shots. That is really not how City are supposed to work.
The best finisher in the game needs more than two shots, even if one of them is a penalty. Maybe Haaland at his swaggering best brushes off Jordan Pickford’s pre-penalty antics. City at their best ensure that Haaland is able to get away with missing his penalty.
If they don’t, they are always vulnerable to something. As is their way under Sean Dyche, Everton invariably committed one fewer to any counter than the move might have needed. Still, they managed to create a fair few openings better than they rustled up at Arsenal, perhaps even than at home to Chelsea. Ndiaye’s brilliant volley might have been the one that paid off but there were other occasions when a black shirt had time in the box to assess his options in the penalty area, their opposing fullbacks miles out of the picture. A cooler head from Jack Harrison at the death and the points were Everton’s.
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