Like Al Pacino’s character Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III, Evertonians could be forgiven for uttering the words: “Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in” following the Blues’ dogged but deserved draw away to Premier League champions Manchester City. One of the most-pleasing aspects of the result was the way the visitors got under the skin of many in the home camp, who promptly behaved like spoilt children who didn’t get their way.
Despite spending prolonged periods on the touchline flailing around, manager Pep Guardiola was at least smart enough in public to deny that he was frustrated by Everton’s approach, stating: “It’s Premier League. Listen, it’s a strategy for the opponent and if the referees do not intervene, I cannot do anything.” Centre-back John Stones was less diplomatic, accusing his previous employers of “time-wasting.”
The reaction of some of City’s fans was even more damning, as they accused Everton of deploying a whole host of supposed ‘dark arts’ to snatch a point. While we all must be aware that the knee-jerk tirades of keyboard warriors on social media aren’t necessarily a fair reflection of the populace as a whole and we will all view matches through the different prisms of our individual standpoints, frankly this correspondent sees such sour grapes as laughable given there was nothing out of the ordinary in the tactics of the visiting players.
This was the same Manchester City team that included captain Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland, two of the most-gifted players in the world in their respective positions but also two men on the day who stuck the boot into Everton opponents with a couple of vicious tackles that would have potentially produced sendings off had the shirts been swapped. It’s Amadou Onana who must now serve a one-match ban after picking up his fifth booking of the season for a foul on Rodri but there was no love lost from De Bruyne on his fellow Belgium international midfielder when ploughed into him yet was only cautioned.
Haaland then lunged in with what looked like an attempt to clean Vitalii Mykolenko out and promptly ran away from the scene of the crime in what resembled a very cowardly fashion, especially for a man of his great stature. Blues boss Frank Lampard gets in hot water with the FA when he suggests that things might be different if the tables were turned but following on from Rodri getting away with his blatant handball in the area when these sides met at Goodison Park earlier in 2022, the body of evidence continues to pile up.
A petrodollar-fuelled revolution provided by the riches of the Abu Dhabi United Group has, as the statues outside the stadium of modern legends such as Sergio Aguero, Vincent Kompany and David Silva (although it looks suspiciously like Kenny Dalglish) transformed Manchester City beyond all recognition and provided their supporters with a plethora of great highlights and many more will lie ahead. But such is the nature of the haves – like City with their galaxy of stars that ensured they were able to bring Phil Foden, Ilkay Gundogan and World Cup winning striker Julian Alvarez off the bench – and the have-nots in contemporary football, on the all-too-few occasions that those with the greatest resources are denied, then things can get ugly as we saw here both on the pitch and with the ‘crying’ from home supporters.
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While the large travelling contingent of Evertonians were in full voice, it was noted by a colleague how flat the atmosphere was from the home crowd and the conclusion was that this was for them just another run-of-the-mill fixture against cannon fodder opponents who were expected to be despatched with ease. The fact that on this occasion at least, Everton were not compliant, obliging opponents who just rolled over for what would have been their 10 th consecutive Premier League defeat to City, but rather took the fight to their hosts and got in their faces, which was viewed as an affront and prompted toys to be thrown out of the pram.
Everton versus Manchester City might not enjoy the same profile as Liverpool versus Manchester United but given the huge global fanbases of the latter pair which make Anfield and Old Trafford both akin to a football ‘Disneyland’ on matchdays, the meeting of the two Blue outfits could be argued to be a more authentic Merseyside/Manchester clash. Generations of respective supporters who grew up on the Gwladys Street and Kippax won’t try and kid you that the rivalry is anywhere near as intense – they reserve their greatest passions for bona fide derby matches against their neighbours – but there has always been plenty of needle in these fixtures.
For many years they would be lumped together in a somewhat lazy, shorthand way as the loyal but long-suffering fans of the ‘other’ club in a footballing hotbed city, a tag that many Evertonians resented when their own team were a beacon of consistency and an outfit who had enjoyed success over a prolonged period while City were often up and down like a yo-yo.
As mentioned already, in recent years that dynamic has been turned on its head with Sheikh Mansour’s billions enabling City to buy their way to the top of the football food chain and when the European Super League was proposed, they were one of the outfits invited to join what would have been a shameful closed shop competition prepared to proclaim its private members as the game’s elite in perpetuity. Everton’s attempts to try and cling on to the coat tails of ‘The Big Six’ (an economic reality) have in the most part been in vain.
The ironically titled concept of Financial Fair Play ensures that ambitious owners in football can no longer create another Manchester City but seldom has a team spent so much to become so bad as Everton under Farhad Moshiri, ensuring just coming back to contest three points at the Etihad again next season will be deemed success. After the game, Lampard explained how he’d told his players that regardless of what happened on what was always going to be a tough afternoon, he didn’t want them going around, feeling sorry for themselves.
He said: “I didn’t want to see a performance where a goal goes in or something happens and our head goes down. When I see that I don’t like it. I felt a little bit like that after Wolves, I asked for the opposite of that today and they gave me absolutely the opposite of that. And that has to be a blueprint going forward.”
Beleaguered Blues who still follow their side in great numbers both home and away would surely echo such sentiments given the way numerous incarnations of the team in recent years have all too often been unable to cope with adversity. The unexpected but hugely welcome point at the Etihad has stopped the rot after four consecutive losses and ensured Everton didn’t break their own record for the most Premier League defeats in a calendar year – having already equalled their number from previous worst 12-month periods in 1997 and 2005 – but it has the potential to be a watershed moment for Lampard and simply has to now be followed up by more positive displays and results, starting with Brighton & Hove Albion’s visit to Goodison Park on Tuesday night.
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