Everton took full advantage of the growing pressure on Manchester City to take a point at the Etihad Stadium on Boxing Day, including growing grumbles from the home support.

City went into the festive clash on a rotten run of one win in 12, and looked to be on course to begin turning things around through Bernardo Silva's early goal. But a fine Everton equaliser and a missed Erling Haaland penalty continued the awful form and sent City further into a fight for European football let alone a title challenge.

The Blues can't buy a break at present with more injuries compounding their misery against Everton. But they aren't helping themselves at both ends of the pitch, and the persistent mistakes are resulting in some growing disquiet from the stands.

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'How s--- must you be, we're winning 1-0', was the chant from City fans when Bernardo scored, and there were some boos at full time after more points were dropped. Other chants have been heard in recent games - 'We scored a goal', 'We're f------ s---', 'City's lost five in a row'...

It must be said the negative chants are not widespread even despite the poor run, and are as much examples of gallows humour from a fanbase well aware they have been treated to eight incredible years under Pep Guardiola. The City fans have reacted more reasonably to this wretched run than any other supporters probably would.

That record has given Guardiola and his players plenty of credit during the run whereas other managers may be under pressure. But supporters are also well within their rights to ask questions of their team at the same time and they still expect their side to fight and avoid basic, repetitive mistakes.

Everton boss Sean Dyche alluded to those questions when discussing City's form and confidence post-match. He backed City to 'open someone up' in the coming weeks, however he equally admitted his side pounced on the nerves on the pitch and in the stands.

Dyche said: “It’s the first sort of period of questions, I wouldn’t say negativity. I didn’t feel that in the stadium but there were more question marks than usual and you understand why.

“They’re getting questioned, heavily questioned, for the first time. Does that give you a better opportunity? Maybe yes than when they’re free-flowing because I’ve been here when they’ve been free-flowing and hurt our teams many times.

“This was slightly different because it still takes the power of a group to turn that back on. I do think they’re due one, they will open someone up with the amount of good players they’ve got, but our team worked very hard to make sure it didn’t happen to us.”

The fans on Thursday did all they could to rally the Blues as they looked to find a winner in the second half, especially during long periods of possession. When City do turn their form around they will do so with the full backing of the terraces.

But it is up to the players to give the fans a reason to keep backing them. As Guardiola has said, the last eight years of trophies counts for nothing at the moment and that extends to the supporters.

If the run continues, more teams will expose the nerves from the City fans in coming weeks.