Guehi and Man City bottle the Premier League title in staggering style vs Everton

Manchester City were cruising before a stunning Marc Guehi error brought about a scarcely believable capitulation against Everton. They recovered, but not enough. It’s Arsenal’s title to lose again.

As an absurdly loud tannoy advised someone in the Hill Dickinson Stadium to “commence stadium safety exercise” the Everton players responded to the call for caution by sitting on the edge of their box, aiming to repel wave after wave of Manchester City attack in a first-half stroll for Pep Guardiola’s side.

A means to getting something from games against City that was working in the first half of this season amid a distinct lack of bite amid plenty of barking from their forwards now feels like an exercise almost as doomed to fail as in the peak Pep Guardiola years. They look an inevitable force once again when faced with those banks of four, five or ten.

The front four of Jeremy Doku, Erling Haaland, Antoine Semenyo and Rayan Cherki were starting together here for the fourth consecutive game as Guardiola has broken his own mould of chopping and changing his team to expedite the blossoming of a relationship that’s been enjoyed by multiple thriving combinations in the past.

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While there was a pretty even chance of any of Jack Grealish, Julian Alvarez, Riyad Mahrez or Phil Foden making up the two behind Erling Haaland in their treble-winning 2022/2023 season, City have become an easy team to prepare for with Guardiola nailing his colours to XI masts. Any change, like Nico Gonzalez coming in for Rodri here, tends to be enforced.

Doku’s beautiful left-footed curler into the top corner came after a series of probing City attacks which served as warnings an Everton side failed to heed as they lay down and accepted their fate in a first half of great frustration to their own fans with an eye on European qualification and Arsenal fans sat at home praying for an assist in the title race.

That assist and ensuing title-race implosion from Manchester City came from a surprising source in Marc Guehi, in what was truly one of the worst mistakes on a football pitch from any footballer ever.

A man who has been quite rightly lauded for his role in the City turnaround to enter the title race following his January move bottled it in staggering fashion through a comically weak back pass which was less pounced upon by Thierno Barry than taken his stride before he passed the ball beyond Gianluigi Donnarumma.

Guehi looked almost as desolate just two minutes before as the City goalkeeper produced what could have been his Stefan Ortega vs Son Heung-min moment, falling on Iliman Ndiaye’s shot to deny him when through on goal after the City centre-back and Matheus Nunes made a mess of a bouncing ball.

The errors came thick and fast from a City side that bowed under the pressure. Abdukodir Khusanov was robbed by Ndiaye after taking far too long on the ball to concede the corner that Jake O’Brien scored from before Merlin Rohl got in behind Guehi from a throw-in and dragged a deflected shot to Barry for a tap in.

Everton were suddenly in a 3-1 lead; a deserved one thanks to a dramatic uptick in their intensity to coincide with and prompt City’s 13 minutes of bed soiling in the title race.

Mateo Kovacic’s first contribution off the bench in just his fifth appearance of the season was to run in sand and fail to tackle Rohl from that throw-in. His second was a sublime defence-splitting pass from kick-off to send Erling Haaland barrelling through the heart of the Everton defence before dinking Jordan Pickford.

Hope in the game turned into a glimmer of remaining hope in the title race when Doku cut inside again in stoppage time, this time on his right foot to score another quite brilliant goal to snatch a draw from the jaws of defeat which may prove crucial in the fight with Arsenal.

It probably won’t though. It’s no longer in City’s hands. Arsenal will win the Premier League title if they beat West Ham (A), Burnley (H) and Crystal Palace (A) and on the basis of how easily City crumbled here they won’t need that perfect record to pip them.