Tim Cahill and Leighton Baines, the only two players that have really played consistently recently, both scored to beat Manchester City 2-1 Monday at City of Manchester Stadium. The first half started out great with Cahill finding the back of the net in the 4th minute. No one covered him after the ball looked like it was going to go out, but Seamus Coleman whipped in a quick cross right to Cahill.
Highlights and the rest of the recap after the jump.
You can't really blame City's defending on the next goal. Leighton Baines just made a spectacular shot after receiving a pass from Cahill. The play was still quite good the rest of the first half.
The second half, on the other hand, saw us go into retreat mode. We tried to protect the lead, which usually leads to us losing the lead. The defending was quite good though, and we were able to protect the lead, but not without quite a bit of stress given to Everton fans.
I was not happy at all when Victor Anichebe received his second yellow card in the 60th minute. It was a really stupid challenge, especially when he knew he was playing with a yellow (received 5 minutes earlier). The match went downhill from there. We were on the back foot the rest of the match, but Man City just could not score. They looked exactly like we have for the last season really, so I can understand their pain.
I wouldn't say they deserved the a draw though, because they only had a handful of legitimate chances (more than we did in the second half though). Tim Howard played spectacularly and that probably saved the draw for us. I know a lot of City fans were complaining about the handballs (there were a lot of calls for penalties here and there), but there was only one legitimate gripe they could have and that was the Neville handball. We gifted them their first goal when Jagielka deflected a shot right into the goal anyway, so I wouldn't say they were completely unlucky or deserving of a point.
Either way, I am happy with the result, especially because I thought we had no chance of winning and only a medium chance of drawing. Birmingham at home is next. Let's see if we can continue the goal scoring.
Here are the highlights below: