Game in a sentence

Manchester City and manager Roberto Mancini suffer once again at the hands of Everton as a raucous Goodison Park sees their team overachieve and work themselves to a superb victory that leaves Manchester City looking like a shadow of their formerselves.

Observations

• Forget transfer deadline day. The final day of January 2012 will go down as a significant day in the race for the Premier League. Folks, if you didn’t know it before then you should now. Manchester City are in trouble.
• City arrived at Goodison Park with the most goals (60) at this stage of the season by a top flight club since Tottenham in 1963/64 but those stats hide serious problems the club has at the moment in the final third.
• Roberto Mancini surprised many by employing Samir Nasri centrally with Gareth Barry at the start but it didn’t work as the Frenchman was unable to make any significant inroads into a resolute Everton side that were very narrow and needed attacking down the flanks. Mancini switched Nasri with James Milner, who was on the right, before half-time, but the former Arsenal man struggled to find space with his passes in between Everton’s two narrow banks of four.
• Throughout the game City controlled a lot of the ball but did so at a very slow pace. David Silva did his usual running between the lines across the pitch but there was little imagination from the front four and City fans should have some real concern over their team’s ability to score goals. Since Christmas they’ve played nine games in all competitions and failed to score in four of them. They simply do not test the opposing goalkeeper enough and if Silva isn’t pulling out a magnificent pass then they look lost when creating chances.
• It has to be said Everton defended superbly. Their back four – without the injured Phil Jagielka and Sylvain Distin – had three full backs inside it, but they lost few battles in the air despite conceding a lot of height and physique to Man City’s team. Tony Hibbert had a fabulous game out of position alongside John Heitinga and the pair looked like they’d played together all season when in fact it was their first time together. Credit must also go to manager David Moyes who picked Hibbert for his experience over 20-year-old Shane Duffy, who had started their past two games.
• Everton were always in the game although they didn’t look like scoring too often. The goal itself highlighted many of their strengths and subsequently many of their opponent’s weaknesses. Edin Dzeko easily went down under a tough challenge near the halfway line and Royston Drenthe attacked with pace not allowing City to get composed. The ball then went out to the left for Leighton Baines to cross and it found Landon Donovan on the right side (space on both flanks were created by the full backs playing as wide midfielders to try and create chances for City) before the ball fell out to former Man Utd man Darron Gibson whose shot deflected off Gareth Barry and past Joe Hart. It was not a good 30 seconds for Barry who had easily been brushed aside by Drenthe and showed little bravery – just like he did vs Gareth Bale last week – in blocking the shot.
• Barry, along with other high-priced Englishmen, James Milner and Joleon Lescott didn’t have a good game and all three were substituted with former Evertonian Lescott getting jeered when he was taken off.
• Lescott’s withdrawal was because of the play by Denis Stracqualursi, making just his second Premier League start, who was a real menace playing up top on his own and got Lescott booked and may have had him sent off before the end of the season if Mancini hadn’t have taken him off first. The Argentine striker had some excellent movement, won some key headers and was a physical threat that Lescott couldn’t handle.
• City have now lost five games to Everton under Mancini. No other PL team has beaten the Italian more than twice. That is no coincidence. Everton remain one of the toughest teams in the league to break down and are even more difficult to do so when they set themselves out that way against big teams from the start. However, Mancini has far too many talented players to get a pass on this one. He changed his tactics three times in this match and looked like a man devoid of ideas. For the first time since he has been at City I started to wonder about his future. I am not saying he should be fired but it is clear that his team is in some serious trouble at the moment and the answer is simply not the return of Yaya Toure. His team will play less organised teams than Everton in the future but it has to be noted that against inferior teams who do not have the talent to open the game up his team has struggled to score in the past month.
• Finally, one of the most bizarre incidents you will ever see took place in this game shortly before half-time when an Everton fan ran onto the field and handcuffed himself to Joe Hart’s goalpost. It appeared that he was protesting against owner Bill Kenwright for the lack of funds at the club but it was one of the craziest protests you’ll ever see. I love a good fan protest with the best of them but I have to say whenever I see a fan get close to any athlete during a sporting match I can’t help but think what could have been. Thankfully it was not a Monica Seles type incident but Everton should look at how he got onto the pitch in the first place.

Three Stars

1. Tony Hibbert
2. John Heitinga
3. Denis Stracqualursi

Match Stats

Kristian Jack