City Watch: Blues slip up in title race

Following a fantastic result which saw Manchester City reach their historic fourth FA Cup final in a row, their Premier League title hunt continued with a game in unfamiliar and new territory against Everton on Monday evening.

The Toffees moved away from Goodison Park at the start of the season to their new home, the Hill Dickinson stadium. 

The Everton fixture has always been one I’ve looked at as a potential ‘banana skin,’ we can’t forget that in Pep’s first season at City, the Blues lost 4-0 at their former home.

However, since then, the Toffees haven’t managed to beat us in the Premier League, and with the stakes so high, that needed to continue. 

I wasn’t lucky enough to get myself a ticket for Monday evening’s game, and I watched an absolute thriller unfold on TV.

We knew that going into the game with five games left to go we needed to win them all just to potentially be level on points with Arsenal at the end of the season, and after the Gunners’ 3-0 win against Fulham on Saturday, the players needed to rack up the goal difference.

It was clear what Everton’s game plan was about one second into the game, as they kicked off, booted the ball to Donnarumma and proceeded to get into a defensive shape. We had 88% of the possession in the opening 15 minutes of the game, which tells you everything you need to know about the first half.

Despite their rigid defending though, Doku unleashed a tremendous shot just before half time from outside the box, putting the Blues 1-0 up before the break. 

It felt very similar to when we played Leeds at Elland Road a few months ago, struggling to break our opposition down and making the breakthrough just before half time.

What followed was potentially fatal for our title hopes. 

As the Blues tried to break Everton down, a weak backpass gifted the ball to Thierno Barry who promptly equalised. 

City fans have sung about Steven Gerrard’s slip against Chelsea which ultimately cost them the League title to us all those years ago. 

Well, after watching that mistake, I feel like we’ve had our Gerrard slip moment.

I don’t blame Marc for the mistake, he’s been immense for us, and there are games we wouldn’t have won without him this season, but that was a tough one to take, mostly because after the goal, City crumbled trying to go back ahead and conceded another two to make the score 3-1.

It looked like our title hopes were potentially fading, but just moments after the third, Haaland scored to give us a chance. 

With 10 minutes plus injury time to go, City couldn’t find another way through, that was until Jeremy Doku stepped up once again with a similar goal to his first half strike to level the score with the last kick of the game.

At any other point in the season, a draw in a game we were 3-1 down in would be a fantastic result, but given the context of where we are in the title race, it feels like a defeat. 

However, Doku’s late goal means the Gunners’ can’t lose a game presuming we win our remaining fixtures, and if they draw, it goes back to goal difference.

I suspect it will go down to the final day of the season once again, but after coming unstuck to a team fighting for Europe next season, the Blues will face Brentford on Saturday, who are also in that same fight.