Everton 0 Man City 3: Toffees crumble at home to champions

With a certain inevitability Everton went down 3-0 to Manchester City this afternoon at Goodison Park leaving them still deep in relegation trouble.

No one is surprised by today’s result and in truth the Blues were never in this match. They were two down by halftime and conceded another in the second half. It could have been more as well.

Everton had gone into this game on the back of that fantastic performance and result at Brighton last Monday.

Perhaps we hoped against all realism and expectation that they just might somehow carry that momentum into this afternoon’s encounter.

But, unsuprisingly they didn’t and City cantered to an easy win once more at Goodison Park. It is a ground they have very much enjoyed playing at for a long time now.

As expected, Sean Dyche went with essentially the same side (apart from Mason Holgate who oddly came in at left-back) that had beaten the Seagulls in the hope they could reproduce that effort.

The home side though offered little threat, although they had a few moments with James Tarkowski hitting the bar in the second period. City always looked in control.

At half-time Dyche took Dominic Calvert-Lewin off and rather bizarrly replaced him with Neal Maupay who has done nothing up front.

We can only hope that this was a tactical decision (what I don’t know!) or that Calvert-Lewin is being rested for the monumental matches against Wolves and Bournemouth to come.

If he is injured then I think that’s it for the Toffees hopes of staying up.

Well, this was a game that always looked out of Everton’s reach and so it proved to be.

But, the failrue to get something from the match after Leeds and Nottingham Forest’s draws yesterday puts even more pressure on those last two fixtures.

Let us hope Calvert-Lewin is fit for them and that Dyche stops his strange tinkering at the back. The decision to restore Holgate (why!?) who has never done well at left-back was simply hard to comprehend and backfired badly.