A resurgent Man City has moved within five points of Liverpool in the Premier League title race with their recent 3-1 win at Goodison Park over Everton, after having returned from being crowned Club World Cup winners in Saudi Arabia.
Despite their timely comeback from behind victory, City paid a stiff price as they are braced to be without John Stones for a prolonged period after they gamely made up precious ground on Liverpool in the Premier League title race, besides edging much closer to Arsenal after the latter’s shattering 2-0 loss 3 earlier today to a dogged David Moyes’ West Ham selection that fought tenaciously the entire match to deny the Gunners a win.
As a result, the reigning champions are now within five points of the Reds and with a match still in hand.
City had to shrug off their Club World Cub post-victory daze to crank up a gear to overcome Everton from behind. The visitors’ second goal was a controversy after being awarded a penalty on 62 minutes for handball when Nathan Ake’s shot hit Everton’s Amadou Onana’s arm from point-blank range. Julian Alvarez unflinchingly converted the spot-kick. Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva were also subsequently also on target to seal the 3 points for the resurgent Cityzens.
Despite being clearly far from their free-flowing best against Everton, the Etihad Stadium outfit were determined not to be deterred from their objective of proving their dominance this time. Although again without ace goal machine Erling Haaland and talisman Kevin De Bruyne, with both suffering from injuries, Guardiola’s valiant men pressed on in dogged persistence.
De Bruyne could return when City face Sheffield United on Saturday, but Haaland is set to be absent. Guardiola added: “He is training alone but he is not training with the team yet.
“I’m not a doctor. He had a stress in the bone in his feet and it’s so painful. He’s not a skinny guy like Phil Foden, he’s huge and tall so it is more difficult sometimes. When he will be fine, he will be back and play but the doctors come every morning and say which players are available. I create the team and we play the games.”
“Kevin is close but he had fatigue yesterday and we have to be careful,” Guardiola said. “When he was injured for three months, if you don’t handle the timings good you can get injured again. The injury was serious so step by step but he’s training with us and he is so positive so soon he will be back. I’d love for him to play the next game or Huddersfield but what is important is keeping him fit for a long time, not for one game or another.”