Brilliant Everton outmuscle City
- Sunday, January 17, 2010, 14:41
- Premier League
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Everton handed Roberto Mancini his first defeat as Manchester City manager after they bossed their way to a thoroughly-deserved 2-0 win at Goodison Park.A free-kick from Steven Pienaar and a Louis Saha penalty – both in the latter stages of the first-half – were enough for Everton against an exceptionally off-colour City side.
The visitors’ cause was not helped when Roque Santa Cruz was forced off in the opening few minutes, and his replacement Robinho produced such a non-descript performance that he was embarrassingly replaced by Shaun Wright-Phillips before the match had even reached the hour mark.
Robinho was not the only City player guilty of a poor performance though. To-a-man they were dreadful throughout and were lucky not to lose by more than two, with Everton twice hitting the woodwork in the second half as they moved into the top half of the table.
City actually started quite well and dominated the first 15 minutes with Martin Petrov forcing Tim Howard into a good save with a swerving shot and Robinho then firing a volley over the bar after a Carlos Tevez flick on.
However, after that it was all Everton, with the industrious midfielder pairing of Steven Pienaar and the brilliant Marouane Fellaini taking control of proceedings in the middle of the park.
Saha, Landon Donovan and Diniyar Bilyaletdinov all had half-chances before Pienaar finally gave the Toffees the lead in the 37th minute.
The South African curled a free-kick from the left through a gap in the wall and into the bottom corner of the net despite the best efforts of Shay Given to keep it out. Mancini will be furious though with Nigel de Jong who broke his position in the wall.
Bilyaletdinov and Bellamy exchanged chances at either end before Everton doubled their advantage in first-half stoppage time.
Micah Richards was penalised for clearly grabbing a chunk of Saha’s jersey although City can feel aggrieved that a penalty was awarded as the initial contact came outside the box.
The home fans did not care how the penalty came to be and Saha calmly placed it down the middle as Given dived to his left.
Petrov was forced off at half-time with Benjani coming on, but there was no change in City’s fortunes in the second-half, with Tevez, who had scored 11 goals in his previous nine matches, barley factoring throughout.
Instead it was Everton who continued to press and harry and they were twice denied what would have been a deserved third by the woodwork.
First, in the 78th minute, Fellaini guided a superb header towards the corner of the net but Given did remarkably well to push it on to the post.
A couple of minutes later Leighton Baines found Tim Cahill with a peach of a cross but the Australian’s header cannoned off the bar.
Neither miss mattered in the end as Everton cruised to the win, and all that talk of Manchester City being title contenders that followed their win over Blackburn last Monday now looks entirely fanciful.
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