Toffees’ Run Comes To A Sticky End At Manchester City
Everton’s reign as the only undefeated team in the Premier League so far this term came to an abrupt end at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
Despite taking the lead courtesy of from red-hot striker Romelu Lukaku, the Toffees succumbed to a 3-1 defeat after strikes from Alvaro Negredo and Sergio Aguero were followed by an unfortunate Tim Howard own goal. With midfield anchor Gareth Barry ineligible due to the match being against his parent club, Everton were perhaps a bit too light in midfield to be able to combat Manchester City’s wealth of attacking options.
Fans of the Merseyside club, however, will no doubt have similar thoughts about referee Jon Moss’ performance to those of their manager. Speaking after the game, Roberto Martinez labelled the decision to award City’s penalty “a football disaster”, whilst also suggesting that Everton may have been entitled to one themselves.
Even taking into account the controversial decisions, it is likely that Martinez’s side would have struggled to come away with any more than a point against last season’s runners up. Whilst the Toffees have a good record against City and could possibly be considered their bogey team, Saturday saw Pellegrini’s men do enough to avoid a repeat of past upsets.
The fact that it took this weekend’s result for City to leapfrog Everton in the league says a lot about both sides’ progress in the early goings of this year’s campaign. Roberto Martinez’s reign as manager at Goodison Park got off to a steady yet unimpressive start with three consecutive draws against teams whom they would expect to take three points off, but three wins on the bounce in their following three league games would soon make up for that.
City, meanwhile, dominated Newcastle on the opening Monday Night Football of the season, before falling to defeats at both Cardiff and Aston Villa, having initially led in both games.
Heading into the international break, is the Premier League table finally beginning to take shape?
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