BIG SAM HUNG HIS PLAYERS OUT TO DRY

YES, Manchester City were excellent at Goodison but Everton were hung out to dry by their manager.

Is Sam Allardyce up for the fight? His team were not set up to do so against the champions-elect.

That never used to be the case. Whenever I played Sam’s Bolton with Arsenal, victory had to be earned, especially on their patch.

Tactically they were up against you, in your face and worked hard to prevent you from playing.

They would even have different set-piece routines from the ones we saw them deploy most weeks.

There was no such plan on Saturday. The Goodison faithful want to see their team hungry to win the ball back but Everton’s players were not given a platform to stay in the game long enough.

You cannot go into a game against City playing 4-4-2. Some may argue that Idrissa Gueye was injured or that Wayne Rooney does not have the legs for the role but that system meant they were outnumbered in midfield.

I would not want to have played in Everton’s back four in this game. There was always a player spare in the City midfield and nobody knew who they could get tight to.

Had City not had one eye on the Champions League clash with Liverpool, they could easily have scored six goals. Everton were taken to the cleaners but it was hard to judge how their players performed. The way Allardyce set them up left them exposed.