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Manchester City Fan View: Citizens look to rebuild fortress Etihad as Guardiola hopes for clinical finishing

Manchester City’s 4-0 defeat at Goodison Park in January was the low point of Pep Guardiola’s maiden campaign in England (AFP Photo/CHRIS J RATCLIFFE)
Manchester City’s 4-0 defeat at Goodison Park in January was the low point of Pep Guardiola’s maiden campaign in England (AFP Photo/CHRIS J RATCLIFFE)

Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City welcome Everton to the Etihad Stadium on Monday night. Guardiola’s experience of The Toffees has so far been negative, having failed to defeat them at all last season.

Things are different for both clubs this year. Both have managers looking to improve on their first year with the respective sides. Pep will be looking for an assault on all four available trophies. For Ronald Koeman, the minimum target must be to take Everton into the top six.

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Both clubs have invested heavily in the summer transfer window. Two Everton signings in particular could have nerves jangling amongst the home fans. This week, the visitors unveiled new record signing Gylfi Sigurdsson and the Icelandic international will likely make his debut on Monday. We’ll have to hope that he doesn’t have a debut to remember and be especially wary of giving away free kicks in dangerous positions.

Wayne Rooney will also have City fans on edge. The boyhood Evertonian returned to Goodison Park this summer from Manchester United. The Etihad faithful are not going to make him feel any more welcome than they did whenever he turned out there in red, however. Rooney’s record against City is stunning and following his debut goal last weekend, he’ll still be riding the crest of a wave.


Ronald Koeman said last season that City were the best team he’d ever managed against. That was following a 1-1 draw in Manchester that Guardiola’s men completely dominated. That day, we saw the pattern of the season emerge; control the game but fail to break stubborn opposition down. It didn’t help that both Kevin De Bruyne and Sergio Agüero both missed penalties.

Guardiola has tried hard to address that lack of potency that dogged his first campaign in England. Gabriel Jesus has had a full summer with the team. Kyle Walker, Danilo and Benjamin Mendy are there to get up the pitch and create chances – although the latter is still unavailable due to injury.

Despite the hopes that the Blues would be more clinical this term, they were still guilty of missing big chances last weekend. In the opening fixture at Brighton, Jesus and Agüero both missed chances you’d expect them to bury. Here’s hoping that against Everton, they prove that was nothing more than a bit of rustiness.

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It’s essential that City open the season with a win. We saw the title winning campaigns of 2012 and 2014 built on stunning home records. That has fallen away over the last two seasons and needs to be rectified. Pep needs to make the Etihad a fortress again – an early win against the Toffees would be a fantastic platform to do that.

If you want something to hang your hat on, watch out for City pulling off a 4-0 win. The last two times they’ve played their opening home games on a Monday night, they’ve won by that score and gone on to win the league. It will be hard to attain, but that margin would be just the tonic City need.