Manchester City back to winning ways after 1-0 over Everton

Manchester City lined up with one change from the shocking 3-2 defeat to Spurs.

John Stones replaced Kyle Walker at right back as he played in Portugal last week against Sporting Lisbon. Gabriel Jesus made his return to the team after eight games out as a substitute for Raheem Sterling in the 77^th minute.

Riyad Mahrez also made an appearance in the 77^th minute for Ilkay Gundogan.

Everton lined up with one change from their 2-0 defeat to Southampton with Calvert Lewin out with an injury allowing Doucouré to come into the side. They played a 4-3-2-1 against the champions with Richarlson as the sole striker.

With City coming off of the loss in the previous week, Everton were hoping that they would show weakness facing them.

The game did start very unlike the champions, where they play a very possession-based game not having the most of possession being dispossessed left and right leaving Everton to have many chances at Ederson forcing him to make a couple saves in the first 45 minutes.

The first-half ended 0-0 with both teams looking equally matched, which is surprising looking at the teams on paper: Manchester City deemed to be one of, if not, the best teams in the world and Everton currently fighting their way out of the relegation zone.

The second-half kicked off with no changes to either side despite ending the first half equal Guardiola decided to wait to use his subs bench.

The game was full of rough tackles and harsh decisions by the referee who awarded five yellow cards during the game: two to Manchester City and three to Everton, with 21 fouls in total throughout the game.

As the game started to heat up late in the 79^th minute with City seeming to turn up the pace with a double sub since Raheem Sterling was slowing the pace of the attacks down, Guardiola replaced him with Mahrez bringing on more attack power.

Then during the 82^nd minute City seemed to be on the attack with Cancelo on the left wing pushing through he put a ball into the box and with some help from some deflections on the way through.

Phil Foden got his foot on the ball and poked it past Pickford to make the game 1-0.

However, in the 86^th minute, just moments after the Foden goal, there was a heavy shout for handball for Rodri inside the Man City box.

Despite calls from Mersyside supporters and the entire Everton team, the VAR check was complete, and it wasn’t given as a penalty kick to Everton.

After a lot of time wasting from the champions the game reached the 98^th minute as the final whistle was blown ending the tie between these teams as 1-0.

Manchester City’s Phil Foden received man of the match for his goal and his constant pressure on the Merseyside team.

This game leaves Manchester City six points clear at the top of the table leaving Everton one point out of the relegation zone.