The famous nursery rhyme “they huffed and they puffed but they couldn’t blow the house down” would accurately summarise City’s performance at the Etihad. They dominated vast portions of the game but just couldn’t find that incisive moment. Aguero missed two or three chances he would have buried if he was fitter and sharper, rather than trying to gain match fitness after an injury disrupted season.
Roberto Martinez came with a game planof conceding possession and trying to hit City on the break, something both Arsenal and Liverpool have done to beat City. Delofeau fed Lukaku for the master plan to work but Lukaku fluffed his lines. Lukaku is an instinctive striker, the less time to think the more chance of a goal, he seemed to dwell too long allowing Otamendi to block his goal-bound shot.
There were three Argentine Internationals on show last night: Funes Mori, Nicholas Otamendi and Martin Demichelis. It was the least heralded of the three, Funes Mori, who stole the show. Mori at £9m is looking like another astute buy by Martinez and Everton, he was prone to a few mistakes earlier in the season but is improving significantly. The pairing of John Stones, 21, and Funes Mori, 24, was the bedrock of this performance.
Another positive for Everton was Muhamed Besic, the23 year old Bosnian international, who showed some delightful touches and awareness. A valid criticism of Ross Barkley is he struggles to shine in the big decisive games, and it could be levelled at him in this match.
One has to feel for Manuel Pellegrini, chased out of the Real Madrid job by Mourinho, after a successful solitary season and now harangued by the imminent arrival of Pep Guardiola. There is no doubt the ghost of Pep has undermined Pellegrini and it has affected a misfiring City. The “sum of the parts” of this £750m+ team should certainly be delivering more than these fitful, sometimes abject, performances. DeBruyne was quite fitful again, with only long range efforts, Sterling laboured with no real end product, and the magician Silva has lost his wand.
Everton have come under severe criticism by their fans particularly for the 4-3 home loss to Stoke on Boxing Day, and you can see that that has affected Martinez’s approach to games. It has led to a less swashbuckling style and more pragmatism and realism by the Blues. Tim Howard has been the butt of Evertonian complaints but he made a top notch save to deny a powerful Yaya Toure header.
Yaya’s enigmatic graceful presence sums up City, brilliance in abundance but he only really starts to knuckle down when the match is escaping them. There is an arrogance about the City squad that makes a player like Yaya sit back and think somebody will score, and only when they don’t does Yaya shift through the gears. Having such a hot and cold player as captain resonates through the team. Kompany as captain marshals a performance, cajoling his team mates into a performance whilst Yaya ambles along with what appears to be not a care in the world. Yaya did not get on with Guardiola at Barcelona, and perhaps the imminent arrival of Guardiola at City is playing on his mind.
City were unlucky as in the dying minutes when John Stones up-ended Sterling for what was a certain penalty that wasn’t given. It would have been harsh on Everton’s resolute performance, but Pellegrini in his post match interview was rightly aggrieved.
City will regret not chalking up a Premier League gap whilst the Champions League is on its winter break and this was certainly two points dropped that they may rue come May. Fortunately for City their main competitor Arsenal also drew. The game was more entertaining than the 0-0 score line suggests but City will be the more regretful of the two sides.
