PEP’S TITLE WIN COULD BE AN EXTRA SPECIAL ONE
Victory against old rival Jose would be City’s crowning glory
to Merseyside. He will return to the opposite side of Stanley Park to face Liverpool in the quarter-finals of the Champions League on Wednesday night.
Mourinho has no such distractions, and after seeing the attacking team that Sam Allardyce sent out get demolished, Jose is likely to be spending the coming days brushing up on his parking manoeuvres.
Big Sam paired Cenk Tosun and Dominic Calvert-Lewin up front, with Yannick Bolasie and Theo Walcott on the flanks. Wayne Rooney was working in a two-man central midfield.
But it was virtually game-over inside 12 minutes. By then, City had scored twice through Leroy Sane and Gabriel Jesus and were threatening to take full retribution for the 4-0 pasting Everton gave them last season.
City’s first goal was a thing of beauty. David Silva exchanged passes with Aymeric Laporte before floating a cross that enabled Sane to unleash a volley that Jordan Pickford barely saw.
Ederson made Everton pay for pressing high, by clipping a goalkick 40 yards into the path of Sane.
Sane’s pirouette and pass sent Kevin De Bruyne into the Everton box and when he hooked over a cross, Jesus headed past Pickford.
When the brilliant David Silva broke clear to serve up another delicious cross, gobbled up by Raheem Sterling, the visitors were 3-0 ahead before half-time.
When Everton were jeered off by their own fans at the break, one defiant supporter behind the press box shouted: “What are you booing for?”
He was right. City were just too good.
Bolasie punished Pep’s men as they eased off just after the hour by squeezing a low shot past Ederson’s right hand that struck both posts before nestling in the net.
“We’re gonna win the league,” chanted City’s 3,000 travelling fans at the final whistle. The Everton fans who stayed to give Guardiola’s men a standing ovation wouldn’t argue.