NOW THE HEAT’S BACK ON KLOPP
Scrappy City push Reds off top spot
Job done. In different circumstances, Manchester City’s performance might have raised the odd eyebrow. They can certainly play better, and did so as recently as Sunday.
but some nights are about the result, and the result alone. Nights like this one, when three points restored City to the top of the table. How they got there is immaterial, which is probably just as well.
December 15, 2018, was the last day that ended with Manchester City in first place, so the timing is important, too. Liverpool have had it their way for the best part of two months, but no more.
by defeating Everton, City overhauled them on goal difference and it may well be nip and tuck for the rest of the season. Liverpool loyalists will point to the game in hand and say they only have to beat bournemouth at home to restore supremacy, but that is merely half the story.
Yes, Liverpool can go top on Saturday, just as City can then snatch the lead back 24 hours later, but their game in hand is not taking place this weekend.
Last night’s fixture was brought forward from three weekends hence, when City play Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final — and on that day Liverpool travel to Manchester United. That is the game in hand, and it promises to be one of the toughest of the season.
So, for the time being, advantage City. It has been an impressive reaction to defeat at Newcastle nine days ago. After that, City must have thought they could be looking at a seven-point deficit by the following night. Instead, maximum points later, it is Liverpool who must view the table with a degree of trepidation.
Yet, while the scoreline might appear emphatic, this was not vintage City. It was, however, effective City. They scored from a set-piece, which the world knows is Everton’s weakness, and defended resolutely, and not a little cynically when necessary. After Fernandinho was finally booked with around 15 minutes remaining, he could have asked for another three or four offences to be taken into consideration.
All good teams have ugly victories in their arsenal, mind, and the pressure was on the champions, for all the talk of this being one match Everton manager Marco Silva could afford to lose.
It didn’t seem a casual display. Everton tried to find a way through but simply couldn’t and spent long periods of the second half testing massed ranks of City defenders to no avail. To their credit, City dug in, as champions do, and finally pulled away in the seventh minute of stoppage time. Kevin De bruyne sent Gabriel Jesus clear and, when Jordan Pickford saved, the brazilian headed the rebound into an empty net.
but this was as much about City’s resilience as their flair. The defence live very much in the shadow of their forwards under Pep Guardiola, but this does not mean they are without quality.
They play a high-risk game, which can appear fragile, but if Everton could hold out like them, they would not have lost so many games to set-piece moves this season.
Silva’s men have now conceded 17 goals from set- pieces this season, including 12 in the Premier League, the worst in the competition, so City’s first goal really shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
They were even served notice earlier and ignored that, too. Aymeric Laporte came very close from a David Silva corner after 16 minutes, steering it wide from no more than a yard out. Did Everton learn their lesson? Did they heck. In the final minute of the first half, City won a free-kick midway in Everton’s half, and the outcome was sadly predictable.
How was Laporte given so much space, knowing what Everton had already seen? How was he given so much space, considering what Everton must know about the weaknesses of their zonal system? Still, there it was: a teasing delivery from David Silva and Laporte in almost the same position as before, but this time able to send the ball looping back across goal, out of Pickford’s reach.
It was the first time City had got the ball on target all game. Yet it is hard to argue that Everton were hard done by when they had offered so little. one chance was the sum of it, in the first half, a nicely-worked move began with captain Tom Davies — and what a credit to have that accolade at the age of 20 — picking out Theo Walcott with a lovely through pass. His cross found bernard, whose header was deflected just wide.
For City, Leroy Sane on the left flank was particularly wasteful. He saw a lot of the ball but was loose in his treatment of it and too many City manoeuvres were frittered away by poor control, or a lame final pass. The best of it from him came after three minutes when he snapped up an Everton clearance and hit a shot from 20 yards that flew inches wide of the far post.
In the 19th minute, David Silva’s cross was met by Ilkay Gundogan at the near post and diverted on to the bar. Sergio Aguero nearly scored with an overhead kick in the second half. Still, with De bruyne, Sterling and Riyad Mahrez on the bench, one imagines Guardiola’s finger rarely hovers above the panic button for long.
If Jurgen Klopp found the match last night — football people can tune into the games that others can’t, no illegal feeds for them — might he have even been encour-
aged by what he saw? There was not a lot here to suggest City are in greatly better nick than Liverpool, although they have impressively cut the leaders down to size over a matter of days.
Maybe it’s just that City know how to win a league as front-runners, while this is new territory for Liverpool. First place may well change hands many more times before the trophy is lifted, but City know the course and distance and, last night, that certainly seemed to count for something.
EVERTON (4-1-4-1): Pickford 7; Kenny 6.5, Keane 7, Zouma 7, Digne 6; Gueye 7; Walcott 5.5 (Tosun 80min), Davies 7, Gomes 6.5 (Sigurdsson 63, 7), Bernard 7 (Richarlison 73); Calvert-Lewin 7.
Subs not used: Stekelenburg, Coleman, McCarthy, Schneiderlin. Booked: Zouma.
Manager: Marco Silva 6.5.
MANCHESTER CITY (4-3-3): Ederson 7; Walker 6.5, Stones 7, Otamendi 7, LAPORTE 8; D Silva 7 (De Bruyne 89), Fernandinho 7, Gundogan 7; B Silva 6.5, Aguero 7 (Jesus 80), Sane 6 (Sterling 59, 7).
Subs not used: Muric, Zinchenko, Danilo, Mahrez. Scorers: Laporte 45+2, Jesus 90+7. Booked: Fernandinho. Manager: Pep Guardiola 7. Referee: Craig Pawson 6. Attendance: 39,322.