Fuelled by hope, Everton prepare to face City
14 years on from his famous "knife to a gunfight" remark, David Moyes takes his Toffeemen to the Etihad Stadium still out-matched but hopeful of eventually closing the gap
Just over 14 years ago, David Moyes unwittingly uttered a phrase that would come to haunt the final couple of years of his first tenure as Everton manager. For many, his framing of the Blues’ visit to the Etihad Stadium in September 2011 as being akin to taking a knife to a gunfight encapsulated his inability to push the club through the glass ceiling that existed at the time and establish a consistent place among the elite of the English game.
In his first 11 years at Goodison Park, Moyes famously never won a game on the grounds of the old “Sky Four” of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United and he would be frustrated at Wembley in 2009 and 2012 as his Everton side threw away precious leads to lose the FA Cup Final and Semi-Final respectively to expensively-assembled opposition in Chelsea and Liverpool.
Since he departed L4 for United in 2013, that quartet of media darlings has, of course, been augmented by Tottenham and Manchester City, with the latter well on the way to achieving their vaunted status while Moyes was still in the Toffees’ hot-seat.
In the summer of 2011, Everton, still operating under oppressive austerity measures while then Chairman Bill Kenwright scratched around the globe for his elusive billionaire, made just two signings, both free transfer acquisitions in the shape of Denis Stracqualursi and Royston Drenthe, following the sale to Arsenal of Mikel Arteta.
City, meanwhile, splashed out around £80m on new talent, including Sergio Agüero, the man who would do more than most to deliver the Citizens’ first Premier League title the following year. Moyes’s characterisation of the task he and his players faced when they faced Roberto Mancini’s outfit that season wasn’t off the mark even if the public admission of inferiority didn’t go down well with many among the fanbase; sadly, in the intervening years, the gulf between the two clubs has only grown wider.
And while Moyes, having added the likes of Jack Grealish (missing this weekend due to the rules around loan players facing their parent club) and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to a squad already boasting the cutting edge of Iliman Ndiaye, has some attractive stainless steel blades in his arsenal nowadays, he is still lacking firepower up front. The Scot has chopped and changed Beto with Thierno Barry since the Frenchman arrived over the summer and is no closer to knowing which is the more reliable starter.
Current City boss, Pep Guardiola, meanwhile, has a veritable bazooka at his disposal in Erling Haaland. The Norwegian has scored a staggering 136 goals in 155 games — as close enough to a goal game as to make you want to throw up your hands in despair — and the deposed champions are relying on him more this season than in either of his first two campaigns in England. Haaland has scored a dozen goals in all competitions so far; only Phil Foden has more than one to his name.
Given that Foden has appeared in the last few matches to be re-finding his form and Guardiola has star quality through his team like new signing Tijjani Reijnders, it would be folly to distill Everton’s task down to stopping Haaland but it should form the basis of Moyes’s strategy.
Unfortunately, his best centre-half, Jarrad Branthwaite, is unlikely to feature (the hope is that the manager will bring word during his Finch Farm press conference that the big defender has resumed full training and is nearing readiness) and Michael Keane, among the players of the campaign thus far, was forced out of the win over Crystal Palace with a rib injury.
Should that sideline him, it would necessitate further changes at the back, with Jake O’Brien required to move inside to his favoured position and Moyes having to either deploy James Garner or Seamus Coleman at right-back. The skipper played twice for the Republic of Ireland over the break, something he hasn’t managed in the space of a week for Everton for quite a while, but it remains to be seen if could manage a further hour at least this weekend.
So, once again, as they have done every year since they beat Manchester City with goals from Tim Cahill and Leighton Baines in 2011, Everton will travel to Eastlands as unquestioned underdogs. Indeed, it always feels as though Evertonians travel for this fixture in vain hope; no matter where this fixture has been played, it has felt like an almost pointless box-ticking exercise in the club’s calendar. Such has been City’s dominance that no Everton side has beaten them at any venue or in any competition since January 2017.
With The Friedkin Group at the helm and an evolution underway at Bramley-Moore Dock, the belief rather than the hope has to be that the Blues’ day in games like these will soon come, even if it’s unlikely to be this weekend. In the meantime, though, Moyes will still have to mend and make do, particularly if Keane is absent along with Branthwaite.
How Everton approach this game will still likely be very much within the parameters of Moyes’s nature and the manager’s default starting point that one point is better than none. As such, he’s unlikely to go gung-ho and adopt the kind of cavalier approach that has seen Crystal Palace, Brentford and even a Ruben Amorim-managed United secure unlikely victories on this ground over the past seven years. Rather, he will hope to keep the game tight and exploit Beto’s power and legs on the counter-attack in the hopes that the Guinea-Bissau international can find his shooting boots.
What is in the Toffees’ favour is the knowledge that two of their last three visits to the Etihad have resulted in 1-1 draws, both of which involved the Blues coming from behind.
Grealish’s absence will be keenly felt but it offers the opportunity for others, like Carlos Alcaraz, to step up and provide the guile and creativity in forward areas to try and spring a surprise. And a surprise it will be — even if it feels as though Guardiola’s side have yet to truly hit their stride, they’re unbeaten since the end of August, they hammered Burnley 5-1 on 27th September and followed that up with a solid victory at the Gtech Community Stadium before the international hiatus.
As usual, nothing about this will be easy but Evertonians are no strangers to hope. One day surely it will be rewarded…
Manchester City vs Everton
Premier League: Everton wins: 7; Man City wins 18; Draws 3
Reader Responses
Selected thoughts from readers17/10/2025 23:28:50
Darren
Bang on!
Imo, We still don’t have a fit striker !
And plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose !
I would like to see Ndiaye become a false nine, or, whatever the term is for the last decent man, facing the oppositions goal!
in fact, he can’t do any worse than what’s gone before him.
Surely we have enough talent and technical ability to keep the ball on ground and avoid lumping it up to no man’s land !
This lone forward Business has become tedious and redundant, but, yet Moyes is nailed on to play the same Tra - la- la!
I wonder at times, if he ever tries different formations in training !
On another note;
Seeing that the U21’s played the other night, Apparently McNeil and Patterson had absolute stinkers.
These sub par players should be nowhere near our Bench, let alone the first eleven.
Some serious haggling will have to be done in January, to replenish an already depleted squad, that is weighed down by Blank firing strikers and creaky thirty - something defenders
!Ooops! I forgot, we offered one of our sterling defenders an extension.
18/10/2025 06:33:28
I certainly wouldnt put you off that Idea of playing Ndiaye up top Paul. Especially as last time we won there, we went without a striker and Cahill lead the attack from a more withdrawn position.
The problem Moyes has, is that we've spent over fifty million quid on Beto and Barry (seventy if you include wages) and although both of them can control a ball further than Ndaiye can kick it. He is going to be under pressure to find a way to get goals out of them.
I'm hearing Rodri wont be fit enough to play and they are simply not the same team without him. I have a feeling we will be very compact and perhaps even get a win today
18/10/2025 13:24:12
I watched the U21s game against Bradford. In my opinion the performances of McNeil and Patterson have been misreported, due to lazy journalism and the fact an otherwise young U21 team were well beaten. Both did ok. McNeil played as a no 10, with Patterson right back as normal. You could argue that they should stand out at that level, but difficult to with less quality around them. Aznou also played and was responsible for one of Bradford's goals, but that has been less reported, probably because he is a new player and still relatively young.
McNeil is a confidence player who has done well in the past with a consistent run in the side. Unfortunately, he has too much competition to contemplate that at the moment.
18/10/2025 13:26:07
I am a fan of Moyes Darren, but I do get why that remark caused such dismay. You might just about get away with that remark after a game, by way of excuse. but my word, not before the game. You're beaten before you start. It also was such a doing down of the club, like we were some primitive endeavour trying to play with the sophisticates. That may have reflected reality, but it's a hell of a thing to hear the guy leading you out into battle saying it. And probably the real reason he got pelters was cos people sensed the self interest, he wasn't thinking of Everton when he said that, he was reminding the world that his achievements were done with one hand tied behind his back, and so should not stop him from being considered for better jobs.
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17/10/2025 09:50:31
"Knife to a gunfight"
think Moyes was actually trying to big himself up when he made this statement. He said these now infamous words after winning his two previous trips to the Etihad. He wanted to make those victories look even more impressive.
I'm not a great fan of Moyes, but I never understood why so much offence was taken by his throw away remark - especially as it was so chillingly accurate. When we won there a few months earlier, City's attack was led by the world class Carlos Tevez... Moyes didnt even have a fit forward. Tim Cahill had to play up top.
It was a situation which was to handicap us throughout Moyes's first stint. While the rich clubs were able to pay world class strikers like Van Nistlerooy, Aguero, Theirry Henry, Suarez, Drogba,Ronaldo and yes..Rooney. We were trying to attack with blunt instruments like Biffa, Andy Johnson and Marcus Bent.
Moyes didnt help himself. His over-cautious approach cost us victory on at more than one occasion against these big boys, but you would have to be deaf dumb or blind not too understand his point. We were, without doubt, taking knives to gunfights. That is the main reason we lost so many...but not the only reason.
Tomorrow we will be led by either Barry or Beto and their attack will be spearheaded by the most prolific goalscorer on earth - If things don't change. They'll stay as they are.