Everton 0 Man City 2: O’Reilly and Kovacic’s late goals sees Pep’s side leapfrog Nottingham Forest into top four
THREE decades after the red half of Manchester proved you can win things with kids, another across town is on a one-man assault to stage a remake.
Fair enough, this time it is only a ticket to the Champions League rather than a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
But if Nico O’Reilly’s late-season heroics do indeed ensure City are still taking their seat at Europe’s top table next term, the long-term bonus could be just as priceless.
O’Reilly, like United’s infamous wonder-kids of 1992, is a local boy, living the dream with his local club.
And the 20-year-old is doing his damnedest to make sure this nightmare of a season has a happy ending for Pep Guardiola’s men.
A week ago he struck his first Premier League goal in the five-goal comeback win over Crystal Palace, after stepping from the bench at Bournemouth as an FA Cup fifth round star.
And yesterday he moved from left back to johnny-on-the-spot by stabbing in Matheus Nunes’ drilled low cross to keep City in the hunt for a Champions League slot.
Fair enough, they may have had breathing space at the end, thanks to a fizzer into the bottom corner from a falling Mateo Kovacic.
But make no mistake, it was the young pup with the heart of a lion who kept City in pole position in the dogfight to make Europe’s premier competition.
City certainly can’t afford too many more slip-ups if they are going to seal a top five finish.
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And how many people expected to be reading a sentence like that about the four-time champions with half a dozen games to go?
Yet the campaign has been so bad that Guardiola himself has admitted not even FA Cup glory can redeem. Too few peaks and too many troughs.
Mind you, they arrived at Goodison after a step in the right direction, those five goals against Palace took them past a century for the 12th year on the bounce.
Yet amazingly those five were as many as they had netted in their previous six games.
And once again at Goodison they huffed and puffed for so long, with so little in the way of a genuine threat at the end of it. Shots – never mind goals – were in short supply.
City managed only two of note in a first half they dominated possession-wise but gave Jordan Pickford few squeaky-bum moments.
Indeed, the Everton keeper only had one serious save to make – and it was an impressive one, getting down smartly to his left to push a low Nunes snapshot behind.
Not as eye-catching, though, as the stooping, diving Jake O’Brien header to deflect Kevin De Bruyne’s deliberate sidefoot which was destined for the corner of the net.
Mind you, the closest call of all came at the other end with a rare Everton sortie into the City box. It couldn’t have been much closer, either.
James Tarkowski barely jumped in muscling his way between Bernardo Silva and Josko Gvardiol to meet James Garner’s corner.
The Toffees centre back actually took half a step away from goal as he did so, but made solid enough contact to direct his header against the upright.
Tarkowski then almost turned creator of an Everton opener a couple of minutes after the break, when once again he met a Garner cross – this time free kick – to flick it on.
Jarad Branthwaite, totally isolated as he ghosted behind the flatfooted City backline, looked certain to nod the home side in front.
Yet keeper Stefan Ortega – in the side after Ederson’s latest groin problem – produced a marvellous Peter Schmeichel-style starfish save to scoop his header away.
And for all City hogged the ball, rarely did they seriously threaten Everton’s tight-as-cramp backline. Until it lost the general, that is.
Tarkowski has played 109 league games on the run, missing none, in three years as a Toffee. But after limping off with a pulled hamstring this was probably his last of the season.
With the captain KO’d, City scented blood and all that possession suddenly carried a potency, too. Very much it did.
Ilkay Gundogan warmed Pickford’s palms, Savinho had him at full stretch to turn away a low shot and Omar Marmoush should have buried the best chance of all.
The Egyptian got behind Michael Keane, on for the crocked Tarkowski, but Pickford pawed his point blank flick aside and O’Brien put it behind to make sure.
An ominous glimpse of what was to come? You bet it was, because with little over five minutes left, Bernardo Silva and Nunes combined superbly down the right.
Bernardo directed his Portuguese pal down the right, and when he drilled in a cross, O’Reilly stepped across Keane and stabbed in.
Kovacic drilled in a second from Gundogan’s lay-off as he fell, but that was the cherry on the cake…O’Reilly had already stolen the show as master baker.