Manchester City’s final trip to Goodison Park ended in victory as they eventually defeated Everton 2-0.
Neither side stamped their authority on a goalless and largely drab first half, with a James Tarkowski header against the post for the home side the nearest either came to a goal.
But both teams showed more urgency after the break, and, as City exerted a growing amount of pressure, the increasingly influential Nico O’Reilly popped up with a sharp finish to clinch three valuable points in the race for a top-five finish. Mateo Kovacic then made it safe in added time, extending City’s unbeaten Premier League run against Everton to 16 games.
Sam Lee dissects the main talking points from the match.
O’Reilly to the rescue (again)
It is not that O’Reilly does not look comfortable playing at left-back but you can certainly tell he is an attacking midfielder moonlighting out there — largely because of how composed and, increasingly, decisive he is in the final third.
After he came off the bench to set up both City goals in the FA Cup quarter-final win away to Bournemouth last month, Guardiola quipped that the youngster would definitely start the semi-final at Wembley. It was a joke at the time, but the 20-year-old has actually started every game since then.
As mentioned above, he is an attacking midfielder by trade, although Guardiola wants to convert him into a holding midfielder due to his 6ft 2in (188cm) height. The logic seems to be that to learn those defensive habits, he will do it well out of his comfort zone.
The absence from the line-up of Abdukodir Khusanov in recent weeks has confused supporters, because the Uzbekistan international had made a good start to life at City since his January transfer and has become very popular, but it seems that the reason is purely because O’Reilly — who scored and had a big hand in another goal last weekend — is adding a lot of value at left-back, which then allows Josko Gvardiol, who was also very good here, to play at centre-back alongside Ruben Dias.
It all seems to be going quite well, too.
O’Reilly scores past Jordan Pickford in the 84th minute (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Guardiola reverts to his passing playbook
So often, the secret to City’s success in difficult away matches has been death by a million passes. Today, the approach felt more like survival by a million passes.
Guardiola is on record saying that certain stadiums require a patient approach specifically because of the atmosphere the fans there can generate, FC Copenhagen’s Parken being the example in that case, but there are clearly more. Goodison, which has two games to go before it is replaced by Everton’s new dockside home, would be one to add to that list.
This was a poor game and there was a lot of sub-standard execution on display but it seemed clear from the outset that City wanted to play ‘one-thousand-million passes’, as Guardiola says, to ensure firstly that they kept the ball and then reap the benefits of everything that comes with it: quiet crowd, no home-team momentum, no set pieces to defend, everything very calm and stable.
In that sense, it was very much ‘job done’, and would have been even if O’Reilly and Kovacic had not scored those goals at the end. It did seem that the priority was not losing the match and that anything else would be a bonus, which is an approach City have deployed in Champions League away ties before, and, given their baby steps in the direction of their old confidence, it would be no surprise if they had been happy with a point here.
That also seemed to be the case in the 0-0 against Manchester United at Old Trafford a couple of weeks ago, but fortunately it turned out to be so much more this afternoon on Merseyside.
(Jan Kruger/Getty Images)
Three crucial points at the start of a key period
This was a massive victory in City’s push for a top-five finish.
As this game meandered for much of the second half, debates started to be had about whether City should be making more of a push for victory, given the competition for Champions League qualification, but it always felt, at least to me, that a draw would have been a solid outcome.
Not just because Everton are now much harder to beat than they were earlier this season but because so many other teams in the hunt still have to play each other. Aston Villa, for example, and Newcastle were kicking off in Birmingham 45 minutes after this game finished.
Newcastle also have to play Chelsea, who in turn play Nottingham Forest in the season’s final round of fixtures… as well as Fulham, Liverpool and Manchester United in between.
Had City not won here, beating Villa at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday would have become even more important but as well as all those other teams playing each other, City can be relatively confident of beating Wolves at home and Southampton away, leaving a last home game of the season against Bournemouth, which is certainly winnable, before a final-day trip to Fulham.
City still have the same hopes in all of those games, of course, but now have three points from Goodison to factor into the equation.
Their chances of making next season’s Champions League suddenly look extremely promising.
(Carl Recine/Getty Images)
What did Guardiola say?
We will bring you this after he has spoken at the post-match press conference.
What next for City?
Tuesday, April 22: Aston Villa (H), Premier League, 8pm UK, 3pm ET
(Top photo: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)