LONDON: Newly-crowned world club champions Manchester City recovered from a goal down to win 3-1 at Everton and stay in touch with the Premier League leaders.
Everton’s bright four-game winning run came to a painful end, with manager Sean Dyche complaining about the VAR award for a penalty for City’s second goal.
Defeat left Everton teetering above the relegation zone.
Everton have been relegated only twice in their history, in 1929-30 and 1950-51, and have never played in a league lower than the second division. However history is no guarantee of survival.
he hosts took the lead with their first meaningful attack of the game when Jack Harrison slotted in from close range and he could have had a second against his former club but was denied by Ederson’s stunning save.
But City responded in like champions after the break through Phil Foden, who picked the ball up outside the area and smashed in a low finish past the reach of Pickford.
The visitors turned it around on 64 minutes courtesy of Julian Alvarez’s penalty after Amadou Onana handled in the box and Bernardo Silva curled into an open net after Pickford’s miscued clearance to leave Everton hovering just one point above the relegation zone.
Dyche, reviewing match and penalty decision, said: “We can debate the penalty all day. It has been by managers on Zoom calls to say it’s a farce but that’s the way it goes.
“That’s completely natural. He’s not putting his arm up to save it, he’s literally jumping in to try to block the ball. How that is given as a penalty is bizarre in my world but I must be from a different planet. Tonight the linesman gives that and he’s 18 yards away so I don’t know who is giving what any more.
“Who knows? All the managers are debating it. Someone needs to stand up at some point and realise that can’t be a penalty because he’s just throwing himself in front of it to try to block the ball, that’s it.”