With 82 minutes on the clock, Everton had somehow found themselves in the driving seat against Manchester City — the title hopefuls, the quintessential team for May who had come into this fixture in ominous form and, at half-time, looked set to leave it with another three points under their belts.
From looking hopelessly inferior in so many respects and the latest fodder to be fed into Pep Guardiola’s meat grinder in the first period, the Blues were 3-1 up with just eight minutes and stoppage time to go. Behind the relentless energy and running of Merlin Röhl and an improbable double from Thierno Barry, David Moyes stood on the precipice of his first ever victory over Pep Guardiola.
The Spaniard was caught by cameras with a thousand-yard stare of disbelief. A number of City fans had begun filing out of Hill Dickinson Stadium. All it needed was for Moyes’s players to maintain their focus, their poise, their composure and the defensive defiance that had, to that point, underpinned a performance full of desire and obstinance to not only secure the win for him but also vault Everton right back into the reckoning for a place in the top six.
What followed will haunt the manager’s dreams and stick in the craw of Evertonians who have now seen their side concede devastating injury-time goals in three successive matches, lapses that could well scupper their European dreams.
The midfield and defence parted like the Red Sea for Erling Haaland to gallop through and do what he does best to make it 3-2 straight from the restart. And then, with the clock well past the minimum six minutes signalled by the fourth official for time added on, Jeremy Doku was left unchallenged to sweep home a mirror image of the curling effort with which he had opened the scoring late in the first half.
That Everton were in a position to win this game at all was somewhat mind-blowing. For most of the 45 minutes of this contest it felt as though it was just a matter of time before the visitors would score and, if they did, that would pretty much be that. After all, the Toffees haven't won this fixture since January 2017.
Moyes’s team was so deep at times that some of them could have been back in town as City dominated the ball and set about trying to chisel away at Everton’s barricades. They eventually made the breakthrough a couple of minutes shy of half-time but, prior to that, they had found clear-cut chances hard to come by.
Jordan Pickford beat away a drive from Rayan Cherki in the 18th minute while Antoine Semenyo dragged a shot across goal having collected the loose ball and he then volleyed Doku’s cross over a few minutes later.
Everton, featuring changes in midfield as a result of an injury to Idrissa Gueye that saw Tim Iroegbunam come in and Röhl deployed wide on the right, didn’t have their first meaningful foray forward until 25 minutes had elapsed, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s early shot being blocked behind by Abdukodir Khusanov.
And yet they could well have scored first seven minutes after that when Röhl scampered down the right flank leaving his Marc Guéhi in his wake, saw his attempted square ball for Beto diverted behind his target by Gianluigi Donnarumma’s glove and the striker fire an eventual shot off Khusanov and behind rather than lay it back for a more routine chance for Iliman Ndiaye.
Back at the other end, Cherki had skied another Doku cross into the South Stand before the Belgian winger took matters into his own hands at the end of a counterattack by City. Everton’s rearguard had shut down two separate shooting opportunities before the ball fell to Doku on the edge of the box where he engineered just enough space to bend an unstoppable shot into the top corner.
The mountain before the Toffees felt insurmountable heading into the second period as, straight from kick-off, Nico O’Reilly had a shot blocked behind for a corner. And yet, within a minute came the first hint at the mayhem to come when Beto was played in by Dewsbury-Hall and it took a last-ditch tackle from Guéhi to charge down the Guinea-Bissau international’s shot.
With an hour gone and Everton growing in belief, Ndiaye burst through the opposition defence and looked odds-on to score but shot straight at Donnarumma rather than wide or over the stranded goalkeeper.
Five minutes later, after Barry had come on as a surprising replacement for Beto, the Senegalese was in again for a carbon-copy chance but again he put it straight down Donnarumma’s throat.
That opportunity had come from Khusanov mis-judging a deep ball forward by Pickford and it was his defensive partner who was at fault as Everton were gifted an equaliser in the 68th minute.
Röhl tried a speculative ball forward into the City penalty area banking on Barry having made a run behind the defence but it was read by Guehi who calmly sent it back towards his keeper. The England man under-cooked the pass, however, allowing Barry to nip in and slot it home, with Guehi’s touch rendering the striker onside.
Bramley-Moore Dock was energised, the volume surging, and Ndiaye responded with another battling run and it took another saving challenge from Guehi to shut him out in the 72nd minute. James Garner swung in the resulting corner, though, and it was met by the head of Jake O’Brien before the net bulged and the home crowd erupted again as the Blues took the lead.
Ndiaye could have made it 3-1 just a couple of minutes after that when, for a third time, he found himself bearing down on goal but despite Barry being better placed to his right and begging to have it slipped into his path, the winger went for glory once more and was foiled again by the keeper.
But, after Cherki had whipped a direct free-kick into the side-netting at the other end, Barry did double Everton’s advantage as the match entered its closing stages, thanks to another impressive run by the revelatory Röhl. The German latched onto O’Brien’s throw-in, drove past substitute Mateo Kovačić towards the box and lined up a shot of his own but miscued it across the box where Barry was on hand to nonchalantly knock it into the empty net.
It was a potentially seismic moment in the title race, with City trailing Arsenal by six points but with this and one further game in hand, and for Everton’s prospects of qualifying for Europe… if the Blues could just hold out.
Infuriatingly, unforgivably, they were pegged back immediately in what was, in reality, the moment Everton surrendered two points. No one in Royal Blue, least of all James Tarkowski and Michael Keane, had truly got themselves set for the kick-off from which Kovačić despatched a slicing pass straight though the heart of Everton’s defence. Haaland sprinted through the yawning gap and out-paced both centre-halves before clipping the ball over Pickford to make it 3-2.
Hill Dickinson Stadium was briefly hushed before the roar went up demanding that the team see out the final minutes and was matched by the one calling for a penalty as Röhl was clearly wrestled to the ground in the box by Bernardo Silva with no action taken by the officials.
Meanwhile, City went in search of an equaliser. Kovačić smashed a shot well over. Phil Foden belted an effort of his own off target. Moyes replaced Dewsbury-Hall and Röhl with Charly Alcaraz and Nathan Patterson and was then forced to throw Harrison Armstrong on as the clock ticked past the allotted stoppage time because of cramp to Iroegbunam.
Either side of that change, Donnarumma came up for two corners for City and when the second was touched on by Guehi to Doku in space 20 yards out, the winger was invited to size up another curling shot, this this time with his right foot as the Blue shirts in front him stood rooted to the spot and he found the far corner again beyond Pickford’s despairing dive.
Neutrals could no doubt applaud Doku's brilliance but, coming in the wake of conceding injury-time winners to Liverpool and West Ham, it was another agonising gut punch for Everton at the death; the difference between finishing the match week sitting joint-eighth, two points off sixth and having to settle for 10th place and a four-point gap to Bournemouth in the Europa League slot.
There were, of course, many positives to take. Röhl put in the kind of display that makes Moyes’s decision to leave him on the bench for the past three months utterly bewildering; Iroegbunam exhibited raw tenacity in the middle and Barry could well have begun a remarkable arc of redemption after hitting his nadir as an Everton player after his pathetic showing in the derby.
Overall, however, It was a night of what might have been for Moyes and Everton who could have secured a memorable victory had they just made better decisions and been able to hold their nerve to the end.
Match Preview
Hill Dickinson Stadium
Monday, 4 May, 2026
Kick-off: 8pm
Everton’s 4-0 victory over Manchester City at Goodison Park in January 2017 was one of the more remarkable results of the post-1992 era. Until Arsenal walloped the Citizens 5-1 last year it was the joint-heaviest defeat of Pep Guardiola’s managerial career and it stands as an island of joy in a sea of Evertonian misery when it comes to fixtures against the all-conquering Manchester club.
Since Nikica Jelavić “just fookin’ hit it” in March 2013 to seal a 2-0 victory over the then defending champions, Everton have played City 25 times in the Premier League and beaten them just once. At home, that exuberant romp overseen by Ronald Koeman represents the only points the Toffees have taken off them in 16 years. (Had Rodri been penalised four years ago for the most blatant handball aside from Matheus Fernandes's last weekend, we might have had one more.)
Indeed, apart from the four draws they have ground out at the Eithad Stadium in that time, games against City have been an exercise in utter futility for Everton since the end of David Moyes’s first spell as the Blues’ boss and he is 0 for 2 in his second so far.
A month ago, with Everton on a high after the 3-0 thumping of Chelsea at Hill Dickinson Stadium, there was a feeling that Moyes’s current charges could take on anyone in front of 50-odd thousand baying Blues. But now, with their form having fallen off a cliff since, Monday’s clash with a City side very much in full flow feels very ominous.
Everton’s European hopes may well depend on them pulling off a miracle on Monday night, though. Brentford’s emphatic win over West Ham pushed the Londoners four points away into sixth place and though Brighton lost at Newcastle, they have comparatively easier assignments to come against relegated Wolves and Leeds United before finishing their campaign at home against Manchester United.
Chelsea are back to being an unknown quantity now that Liam Rosenior has been canned and caretaker manager Calum McFarlane got them over the hump of an FA Cup semi-final against Leeds while Bournemouth are on a historic top-flight unbeaten run that has them sitting just outside the top six.
Keys to the Game
The key factor in the Blues’ chances on Monday could well be Beto. That statement would have bemused Evertonians a few months ago but the Portuguese-born striker has emerged in recent weeks as one of Moyes’s most important players.
Just as important as the five goals he has scored in his last seven outings have been his physical presence and nuisance-making at one of the pitch and his aerial prowess defending corners at the other. His absence was keenly felt after he was forced out of the Merseyside derby with a concussion and again at the London Stadium last weekend, particularly when Tomáš Souček out-jumped Thierno Barry to put the Hammers ahead early in the second half.
On both occasions, Barry struggled to match Beto’s impact, although were it not for Souček, the Frenchman would have notched his first goal since the end of February and revived his own fortunes at the club after a torrid few weeks.
Just as important as Beto doing everything he can to unsettle City’s back line will be Iliman Ndiaye. A mesmerising match-winner on his day, the Senegalese has been fairly subdued since returning to Merseyside with a minor foot injury during the last international break but if he can re-find his inspiration, he is one of the few Everton players alongside Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Jarrad Branthwaite and Jordan Pickford worthy of mention in the same breath as those as Guardiola’s disposal.
Branthwaite’s absence at the other end with a hamstring tear could be another big dimension to this match-up at Bramley-Moore Dock. With his pace and power, he would have been best placed to deal with Erling Haaland. As it stands, with Michael Keane and James Tarkowski the likely pairing, Moyes will have to adapt his tactics to ensure that Everton aren’t exposed to the explosive Norwegian’s pace in transition.
Unfortunately, Haaland isn’t close to being the only thing the Blues have to worry about. Rayan Cherki is in sparking form, a clear standout in the Premier League in recent weeks; Bernardo Silva looks determined to finish his City career on a high; Antoine Semenyo offers speed, power and goal threat; Jeremy Doku provides trickery on the other side; and Marc Guehi an threat in the air from set-pieces.
All of that would be bad enough if City weren’t in that part of the season where they’re typically in a groove, either rampaging to a title triumph or chasing down the team ahead of them. Guardiola’s men have lost just once in the Premier League since 22nd November, have already won the Carabao Cup and are into yet another FA Cup Final.
As is always the case, however, it comes down to 11 vs 11 on the pitch and anything can happen, particularly in front of what is expected to be a fevered Bank Holiday Monday crowd. They won’t have much of the ball but if Everton can find the inspiration on the day, capitalise on City’s high line, benefit from some rub of the green and, perhaps, a positive impact off the bench from someone like Tyrique George — expect Moyes to go with his tried and trusted, which includes Dwight McNeil, from the start — then anything is possible.
Head to Head since 1992*
Everton wins: 11
Manchester City wins: 13
Draws: 4
*Premier League era at Goodison Park