Manchester City endured 13 minutes of madness on Monday night as their Premier League title hopes imploded at Everton.
City were leading 1-0 at half-time from a Jeremy Doku goal but they defensively disintegrated to go 3-1 down. They recovered to draw 3-3 but the damage was done; the Premier League title is now Arsenal’s to lose.
Arsenal fans are already promising to be ‘insufferable’ as it now seems certain that they will win their first Premier League title in 23 years.
City’s second-half issues have become a real pattern of this Premier League season. If games ended at half-time, the title would basically already be in the bag. They are a massive 13 points ahead of Arsenal in that table.
City have conceded just nine goals in 34 first halves while they have scored a remarkable 38 goals.
The Premier League first-half table:
Interestingly, Chelsea would be in a Champions League place if games ended after 45 minutes, while West Ham would be well clear of danger and actually above Aston Villa.
But after the break, things change dramatically and Manchester City are only the eighth-best team in the Premier League. Hell, even Chelsea are better.
The Premier League second-half table:
On that table of Premier League football after the half-time break, Arsenal have been phenomenal; their nearest challengers on that metric are Aston Villa, who are seven points behind.
Manchester City are down in a lowly eighth, having conceded far fewer goals than Manchester United and conceded more goals than Crystal Palace.
You will not be surprised to see that City are inferior to Everton after the break, as illustrated to clearly on Monday night.
City have now lost 17 points from winning positions, while Arsenal have lost just nine.
Pep Guardiola said after the 3-3 draw at Everton: “Really good performance. We played an outstanding first half. It was so difficult with their physicality. Second half, maybe we were not as much in control, and after we gave away the goal, they came back and made a proper English game, so aggressive in the duels. But in general, we made a really good performance.”
Everton boss David Moyes also admitted it was a game of two halves, saying: “At halftime, we would have taken this result because we were hugely outplayed in the first half. I wanted us to get more contact, closer to Manchester City. We couldn’t get near them. They played really well, as well.
“But we weren’t anywhere near what we’ve done. It was probably the poorest we’ve played here, certainly against the better teams this season.
“So, the players made a great effort to get us in the game, and when we got to 3-1, we should be doing enough to see it out, but we didn’t do it.”