Pep Guardiola and Ronald Koeman go back a long way and the Everton manager was able to put his special knowledge of his old Barcelona team-mate to good use in setting up his side to take an unexpected point at the Etihad.
“We came with two gameplans,” Koeman said. “I spoke with my technical staff before the game and I said that knowing Pep, we need to expect three defenders. That is how it turned out and it meant we put three strikers up front so we could play one on one. If we win balls or second balls we can be very dangerous, but after 20 minutes we had not even seen the ball.
“City played fantastic football, good movement, really high tempo and high pressing, but because of our defensive organisation they could not create really open chances. I would say they are the best team I have come across in my managerial career and maybe we were a bit lucky, with the goalkeeper playing his best game ever.
“But football is unpredictable, our fighting spirit and intensity over 95 minutes was unbelievably high and we all know Romelu Lukaku is one of the best strikers around. He is strong, especially in one against one situations, and the way he finished was world-class.”
Guardiola took care to compliment Everton on their defensive display and Lukaku on his goal, but could offer little by way of explanation for another underwhelming City performance, complete with two squandered penalties, “We made absolutely everything today, we found the spaces, we reached the byline, we put in crosses but nobody was there,” the City manager said. “Everton had once chance, but football can be like this. At least it was an improvement on Celtic and Tottenham.”
With Sergio Agüero guilty of wasting three City penalties this season, and Kevin De Bruyne now joining him, perhaps a spot of spot-kick practice would not go amiss. “I don’t have time to practice everything I want to practice in training,” Guardiola said. “In any case there is no pressure in a training session, nobody is there. It is not like in a real match. But even without the penalties we created enough to win the game.”