Man City 3 - 1 Everton - Goals and highlights

We had to come from behind against a very good Everton team today, goals from Alvaro Negredo and Sergio Aguero helped to secure all three points.

City and Everton both contributed to a good a game of football today, as I thought Everton came to win and were very positive in their style of play, we played well though and were just too strong for them in the end.

I just want to get something out of the way, I am seeing a lot of comments online about the referee handing us the game, whilst I do not dispute the ref was shocking, both teams were on the receiving end of his poor decisions. In the case of the penalty that was awarded, Zabaleta bought it there is no denying that but it was there to be bought and I don't think Everton fans would mind if their player were to do the same.

Six changes were made to the starting line up today and rightly so, the likes of Milner and Negredo add a much more hard working, competitive edge to the team. These are the kind of decisions I like to see from a manager, Pellegrini wasn't scared to drop certain big names and make a statement that if you don't play well then you don't play, I haven't quite warmed to Manuel yet but fair play to him on this one.

The first half of today's game was quite an even affair, we were playing reasonably well and so were Everton. The visitors took the lead when Lescott made a mistake to let Lukaku through on goal, we didn't deserve to be behind and fortunately for us it was only 90 seconds before Negredo equalised. As the half wore on we could of quite easily been out of sight, Aguero the main culprit for missing a host of chances, our little Argentine did put things right though and scored right before half time to send us in at the break 2 - 1 up.

The second half of the game was totally different to the first, we were playing very well and dominating the game, our third goal came on the 69th minute from a Sergio Aguero penalty and that was the game pretty much sown up. Throughout the second half we dominated the game for long periods and were running a very good, unbeaten Everton side ragged at times, we looked confident and well assured.

There were some good individual performances on show today and I just want to highlight a few of them. Kolarov who normally gets a lot of negative press was influential up until the point where he had to go off with an injury, Negredo was working very hard up top and was a handful for the Everton defence and Fernandinho had probably his best game for us, he was weighing in with tackles, his distribution was good, he was filling the gaps and tidying up in midfield.

On a constructive note, I did think that the midfield was still a little bit slack at times today and yet again it had to be put down to Yaya. He is to lazy and constantly frustrates me because with a bit more effort we all know what he is capable of. He doesn't work hard enough to get back and impose himself on the game, Fernandinho was mopping up for him all day today and made him look better than he was, it is almost like he is the senior player out of the two so he has the right to let Fernandinho do all the dirty work. He has been found out a lot recently and it is time he started pulling his weight more, of course it is great when he threads a quality pass like he did today for Negredo or bangs a free kick in but these are just bare minimum contributions from such a talented player who has a lot more to offer.

To sum up we were good today and had to be against a good Everton side, saying that I believe we can be much better. As a team and individually we can certainly improve, I think it is just a matter of Pellegrini working out his best team and helping certain players understand what he wants from them, if he can do that then we should have a good season, there isn't many teams better than Everton in the league, so if we can beat them with six changes then with some tweaks the possibilities are endless.

Goals and highlights.