Somewhere in London, a celebrated former Everton midfielder may have raised a toast to his old club. Manchester City avoided a damaging defeat with virtually the last kick of the game at Everton but two dropped points handed Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal the advantage in their pursuit of a first league title in 22 years.
Jérémy Doku opened the scoring in magnificent style and ended the scoring in similar fashion in the 97th minute – six minutes of stoppage time had been signalled – to rescue a point for Pep Guardiola’s visitors. They had been stunned by a second half Everton fightback that saw David Moyes’ team take a 3-1 lead through the substitute Thierno Barry’s second goal of the night. But Doku, curling a sublime shot around Jordan Pickford after collecting a Phil Foden corner outside the area, extended City’s unbeaten run to 12 matches and showed this team will not disappear without a fight.
Guardiola’s visitors were comfortably in the ascendancy but ahead only through Doku’s exquisite first-half goal when Barry struck either side of a Jake O’Brien header to turn the contest and the title race.
The penultimate away game of City’s title challenge may have represented an awkward assignment but this looked a good time to play Everton. Moyes’s hopes of securing European qualification in his first full season back in charge have faded since Virgil van Dijk’s 100th-minute winner in the recent Merseyside derby. A second successive stoppage-time defeat, at West Ham last weekend, dented those prospects and morale further. The large number of empty seats around Hill Dickinson Stadium supported that view and the loss of Idrissa Gueye to a muscle injury sustained in training removed a key component from the Everton midfield.
