v Everton

[gavin]

 | Ederson, Lewis, Stones, Akanji, Ake, Rodrigo, De Bruyne (C), Bernardo, Mahrez, Haaland, Grealish

SUBS | Ortega Moreno, Walker, Phillips, Cancelo, Gundogan, Alvarez, Gomez, Foden, Palmer

Bernard in for Gundo

[gavin]

Not the greatest half but the reffing hasn't helped. Great work from Mahrez for the goal.

[gavin]

City were bad but that ref was just a joke. Everton took the piss out of him.

[KunDB]

Scrappy stop start game, exactly what Everton wanted and got thanks to the officials.

However, we are to blame for this draw on the back of a defeat we took our foot of the pace after 1 0. The assistant referee technical issue contributed to us failing to get back on rhythm Second half. But all round we did not fire and conceded softly to their one chance.

Poor and needs addressed.

[Hesperus]

5 points dropped in our last two home games. Not good enough.

We were very poor today. Only 2 good chances in the 1st half and I can't remember any good chances in the 2nd 45. Why is Foden not starting?

Pretty amazing time wasting from Everton. That the best I've ever seen and it worked.

[Victoria]

In my view Everton never attended to play football with 5 at the back and 4 in mid -field. In addition, their intent was made clear with the first challenge on Haaland. I don't buy into it as an accident. Ithought it was deliberate so did Haaland by his reaction with future tackles on Everton players.
City were poor today, due to Evertons spoil tactics, time wasting and inconsistent officials. However,  for most part City's passing was poor all game.
I'm not going to make excuses as City should be able to overcome teams playing like Everton today if they want to be Champions. In other words, City need to be more consistent.
Today is a bad day at the office for City.

[gavin]

That's two very poor home displays on the trot in the league for City. Work needs to be done on breaking down these teams and also not giving away the ball so easily at times.

As for refs, it is hopeless. They have no authority at all on players. Look at the Everton players wondering around wasting time, the ref waves at them to hurry, they go at the same pace maybe even slow down and he does nothing. But refs can't be questioned by fans or the media because we must all show respect. But they don't deserve any. I pay to watch a game of football. That second half simply wasn't one. They just broke up the game at will with the ref doing nothing about it at all in fact he was an all too willing participant. 11 minutes injury time wasn't nearly enough and they just started that by wasting the first minute or so of that too.

The thing with the linesman was a farce. For 100 years plus they ran the line with just a flag and flagged to let the ref know if they needed to let them know of something important. If the tech breaks then that is how they should operate. They should attempt a fix if and when there is a proper injury break. But it just speaks of their incredible self importance that they can hold up a match for so long for something which isn't really needed for the job.

[KunDB]

In fairness to the referee he did ignore on one occasion an Everton player lying near the touching feigning injury. When needed to defend he suddenly was able to get up and play.

It seems to me that if I was referring games and a player was seemingly injured near the side line I'd point to him to go off for treatment and play on. If necessary, the referees should be allowed to stop the game have the player stretchered off, for treatment off-field and only allow back on the field of play after say five minutes have elapsed. Yes effectively make feignimh injury a risky business. All head injury stoppages should require a player to be taken off the field for ten minutes minimum.

[gavin]

On one occasion...

How many times did they fall to the floor?

[lee]

I like Lampard but he was a cnut today the way he set them up.I hope they get relegated.
The ref was abysmal

[Stephen Paul]

Bad day at the office. As for Everton, hope they go down

[KunDB]

The stoppage for the assistant referee took 6 mins 30 secs roughly (timed), there were 3 City subs all at the same time (30 secs), there were four Everton subs three spells as one was a double sub, (1 min 30 secs). So by my calculation that leaves 2 mins 30 secs for all other stoppages and injuries which seems extremely meagre given the game flow (or rather lack of). And let's not forget the wasted time in injury time.

Would that referee actually, or any referee, have the bottle and common sense, to call 17-20 minutes injury yesterday. That's what I reckon should have been called, and ultimately played.

[Neil Mcnab]

Everton are fighting for their lives, can we expect them to roll over for us? Poor game. Win the next.

[gavin]

Interesting that in the embargoed post match press conference released this evening, Pep says that City have played as well as they ever have done under him in the last three games. Surprising. He also seemed remarkably cheerful considering it was just after such a disappointing result. It's renewed my hope for a good season somewhat. If there's anyone who can recognise a successful team in the making it is him.

[KunDB]

Pep is always positive at pressers, I wouldn't read too much into what he says publicly.

Lampard gone by end of week I reckon after Brighton hammered them tonight.