Next Gen News

Match pointers

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Howard Webb (S Yorkshire)

"I like those 8-1 odds," says Gary Naylor. "It's not that I think Everton will win - City will beat better sides than ours this season - but expectations have been set so low at Goodison and so many players are young and / or largely unknown in English football, that there's a kind of fearlessness abroad that produces goals at either end (ignore all that stuff about playing with one or none up front: formations don't score goals, players do). Moyes's men may cop a few 4-0s this season, but we might turn over one or two big boys when they're least expecting it." So 4-0 to City it is then.

Nasri slashes a shot wide. "Leighton Baines is a worthy successor to Andy Hinchcliffe and, of course, the great Kevin Sheedy and a lovely bloke by all accounts, but somebody should have a word about that hair," says Gary Naylor. He's also a very fertile man, he'd had three kids by the age of 22 or something. But in a homely way, not in a the mothers of my children are Las Vegas strippers way.

Everton throw in and Tony Hibbert takes to little success. I'm not sure if I've ever noticed Hibbert doing anything before. He just is. "Who is Mancini extending his hand to in that photograph," asks Jack Goodson. "With a face such as that, it can only be Rowan Atkinson surely."

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Baines wins a corner. Osman takes and the ball comes, eventually, to Drenthe who shoots over. "All these yellow cards for Everton whenever Silva goes to ground, but no pen for an arm in the face on Cahill in the first half, and not even a foul now on Saha on the edge of the area," says Duncan Hawthorne.

City have the ball in the net. Balotelli beats his man and taps it to Silva, who taps it into the net but it's offside. Balotelli has been a far better player today than the man he replaced, Dzeko. Jagielka is booked for a tackle from behind.