Man City 2 – 0 Everton
Everton kept the reigning Champions at bay for just over 70 minutes before Manchester City finally broke their resistance with an Erling Haaland double.
The Norwegian scored his first Premier League goal since late November with City’s first shot on target in this lunchtime kick-off and then wrapped things up on the breakaway late on while the Toffees barely threatened Ederson at the other end.
With Sean Dyche mic’d up with his coaching staff and watching on from the stands as he served a one-game touchline ban, Everton made a decent start and created the early openings but let themselves down badly with the final ball.
Dwight McNeil eschewed the chance to repeat Demarai Gray’s heroics from distance in this fixture last season and tried to slip Ben Godfrey in instead, the makeshift full-back sliding in on the keeper who managed to hold onto the ball.
Then Jack Harrison looked to capitalise on a poor pass out from the opposition defence by playing in Dominic Calvert-Lewin but in a moment that summed up a woeful afternoon’s work from the striker, he ignored McNeil’s run to his left and dropped a lame attempt to chip Ederson wide of the target.
On the other side of the ball, the visitors were mostly excellent in the first half. Only Jeremy Doku, who twice skinned Godfrey down the hosts’ left, seemed able to make any inroads through Everton’s organised shape but his first cross was just too high for Haaland and his second was cleared away before it could find a sky blue jersey in the middle.
Everton’s best chance of the game fell to Harrison eight minutes before half-time when superb, determined work by Ashley Young down the right flank ended with his cross being diverted into the former’s path but with the chance to finesse a shot into the top corner with his left foot, he ballooned a poor shot into the stands.
James Tarkowski got away with a slip trying to play out from the back in one incident but put in an excellent block in a crowded penalty area in another on the stroke of half-time as the Toffees made it to the break all square.
The pattern continued into the second half and didn’t really change until Pep Guardiola introduced Kyle Walker and Kevin de Bruyne just before the hour mark.
Calvert-Lewin’s weak shot from distance had been the only attempt at goal to that point and Dyche had been forced into a change of his own when Godfrey, starting at right-back again, was forced off with apparent illness and replaced by Seamus Coleman but the dam eventually broke in the 71st minute.
Walker’s cross appeared to have been headed behind by a City head but referee John Brooks awarded a corner on their right, one which caused havoc in the box as Ruben Dias’s header bounced off Tarkowski and Jarrad Branthwaite’s clearance hit an opposition player. The ball fell to Haaland and he smashed it back across goal where Pickford got a hand to it but couldn’t prevent it from hitting the back of the net.
Dyche swapped Calvert-Lewin and Young for Beto and the returning Amadou Onana and the Blues were enjoying some promising possession down the right when a wayward pass from Harrison looking for Coleman was intercepted and the ball worked to De Bruyne.
He sent Haaland away into a race with Branthwaite which the striker won when the defender lost his footing and fell, leaving Haaland with the task of sweeping it wide of the stranded Jordan Pickford and inside the far post.
Everton had the ball in the net in stoppage time when Coleman won the ball of Jack Grealish in the middle and late substitute Lewis Dobbin found Beto who rattled it past Ederson but the Portuguese had been clearly offside.
De Bruyne almost put an unfair gloss on the scoreline when he tried to lob Pickford who had come well off his line to close him down but the Belgian’s effort dropped onto the roof of the net.
Overall, this was an entirely expected result, with the only surprising being that it took until the last quarter of the game before Guardiola’s much-vaunted treble-winners managed their first shot on target.
Everton set their stall out in predictable and effective fashion from a defensive point of view but they also had their chances in the early going to try and first blood. Unfortunately, their betrayed their depressing attacking limitations, with Calvert-Lewin particularly disappointing as the lone striker and on whom so much depended to get the team up the pitch.
No one expected anything from this fixture, of course, so attention now shifts to the altogether more important home clash with Crystal Palace in nine days’ time where it looks as though Onana will be in contention to start and the much-missed Abdoulaye Doucouré could make his return.