Pep Guardiola and his Manchester City players were stunned into disbelief when they lost their almost four-month unbeaten run to Tottenham Hotspur in front of their home fans at the weekend. Manchester City have suffered Premier League defeats in the past even if it is rare in comparison to other big teams such as Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea in recent times, but the manner of the defeat to the Antonio Conte-led Spurs is almost unprecedented in the Premier League era.
Tottenham Hotspur have always been a difficult team for Manchester City irrespective of the players on both sides as demonstrated at the start of the season when Guardiola and his players began the defence of their Premier League title with a 1-0 defeat at Spurs in what was their first game this season. Son Heung-Min was the recipient of the game’s winning goal in the second half. He was always the thorn in the flesh of Manchester City. The defeat to Spurs meant that Manchester City have lost that fixture in each of the last three seasons. Continue Reading
Everton manager Rafael Benitez is on the brink of being sacked just six months into the job after his team lost 2-1 at Norwich City who were at the bottom of the Premier League table before the faced off in the league. The ex-Liverpool, Newcastle United and Chelsea manager has overseen a poor run of form in the league at Everton over the last three months. Under his watch, the Toffees have won once in the last 13 league matches with the only win coming against Arsenal at the start of last month. On that occasion, Everton winger Demarai Gray scored a dramatic late winner as the hosts came from a goal down to beat Arsenal 2-1 at home. Norwegian international Martin Odegaard was responsible for the Arsenal goal on the stroke of half-time and the advantage was cancelled out by Brazil international Richarlisonwith ten minutes to go before the winning goal from Gray gave Everton a big win.
Since the Arsenal game, Everton have drawn one and lost three of their four league games with Spanish tactician Benitez in the dugout including two successive losses against Brighton and Hove Albion & Norwich City. Continue Reading