FEATURE: DAVID MOYES' MAN CITY AND MANCINI MANIA

Photo credit: AP

The date is 24^th March 2010 and Everton are cruising to a 2-0 victory over Manchester City which went on to seriously dent the team’s top 4 aspirations, as well as being the free-spending Citizens’ first home defeat of the season and only the third defeat Roberto Mancini suffered since he took the job in December 2009, the first of which was also a 2-0 defeat at Goodison Park in January.

Therefore, it is rather clear to see exactly why Mancini was so agitated to the point that he decided to shove David Moyes, claiming the Scotsman was time-wasting while retrieving the ball for an Everton throw-in. As a man that isn’t exactly even-tempered, Moyes marched straight up to the Italian and angry words were exchanged before the pair were broken up by the fourth official. This bizarre turn of events set in motion a heated rivalry between the two managers. Leon Osman claimed in his autobiography that ‘there was an extra fire in his eyes for those games [against City]’.

Everton’s record against Man City had always been temperamental under Moyes; few can forget the 5-1 humiliation on the final day of the 2003-04 season. Expectations were not high in the build-up to the encounter between the two sides at Etihad Stadium on 20^th December 2010. Everton’s last win was eight games ago on 30^th October which fittingly was the last time City had lost a game. Man City were also sitting high in 3^rd; in stark contrast, Everton were in 15^th. Despite the stacked odds against them, a determined David Moyes masterminded a 2-1 victory over his newly-formed foe’s side, with early goals from Tim Cahill and Leighton Baines. Yaya Toure grabbed a late consolation for the hosts and his brother Kolo as well as Everton’s Victor Anichebe were both sent off in the second half.

It was without doubt quite an ugly win for the Blues but it did set in motion an upturn in form that saw Everton sitting pretty in 7^th by the time City came calling for the return fixture on May 7^th desperately needing a win to ensure their top 4 hopes were not extinguished. And for the first 45 minutes, the Sky Blues seemed on course to do just that with a commanding performance as well as a 1-0 lead through Yaya Toure. But Everton hit back in the second half and on 65 minutes, former Citizen Sylvain Distin thumped in a header and seven minutes later came one of the best goals I’ve ever seen scored live and one of the most underrated in recent years for Everton in my opinion.

Phil Neville sent a chipped cross into the box from the right side of the pitch which was met by the head of 5ft 8in Leon Osman who managed to get above 6ft 4in Vincent Kompany and send a terrific header looping over England’s goalkeeper Joe Hart. It was a worthy winner of a game that left the record between Moyes and Mancini at 4-0 to the Scotsman. Unfortunately, this flawless record for Moyes was about to come to an end as Manchester City went to the next level the following season.

By the time the following tie rolled around on 24^th September 2011, City had won four of their first five Premier League games and were on the way to winning their first Premier League title in 44 years. They easily swept aside an Everton side struggling in form with second half goals from Mario Balotelli and James Milner. Mancini had finally got one over on Moyes. But the Everton manager was still to have the last laugh that season.

The reverse fixture took place on the final day of January 2012. It was a Wednesday night clash that was to provide a huge twist in one of the most exciting title races in Premier League history. The first half of this game contained the infamous incident where the fan handcuffed himself to the Man City goal and play was stopped for five minutes. But for Everton fans, the game will be most fondly remembered for new signing Darron Gibson’s bullet of a strike on exactly the hour mark that was the only goal of the match and meant Everton had beaten Manchester City. The win greatly aided Gibson’s former club Manchester United, as well as Moyes’ pal Sir Alex Ferguson, in their hunt for the title.

Indeed it was Sir Alex that took a lot of responsibility for the 2012-13 season being the last campaign in which Moyes and Mancini could wage war on one another. Ferguson’s retirement at the end of the season left a vacant position as manager of the most successful club in the country which of course Moyes was not going to turn down. As well as this, after Mancini had led the Citizens to the league title the previous season, only the best was going to be good enough for the City board and with Sir Alex ending his illustrious career with his 13^th league title the following season, Mancini was relieved of his managerial duties at the Etihad Stadium, meaning the two Everton-Man City fixtures in the 2012-13 season were to be the last two times Moyes and Mancini went toe-to-toe. In true tradition, it was always going to be the Scotsman who came out on top.

Man City had won all but one of their seven home games in the league by the time they were visited by Everton on the first day of December. But Everton took two points off them with Marouane Fellaini’s first half opener being cancelled out by a Carlos Tevez penalty two minutes before the interval. This was the third 1-1 draw in a row for the Toffees and it left them in 6^th with City sitting in 2^nd.

These two positions were the same for the final Moyes-Mancini encounter that came on 16^th March 2013 and will go down as the most celebrated for most Evertonians. Everton had just suffered a humiliating 3-0 home defeat to Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup Quarter-Final the previous weekend (the same Wigan side that defeated Man City in the final a couple of months later) and were determined to bounce back.

Things seemed to have got off to a great start when Kevin Mirallas smashed home a 13^th minute strike but the Belgian was erroneously judged to have been offside. However, there was no chance of ruling out Leon Osman’s colossal 30 yard hit twenty minutes later that fizzed and span away from Joe Hart and put Everton in the lead. Everton now had a task on their hands to keep hold of this lead. They were not helped by Lee Probert who seemed to be incapable of booking any Man City players for their snide tackles but was more than willing to send Steven Pienaar off on 61 minutes for a second bookable offence. The Toffees’ stand-in goalkeeper Jan Mucha, making one of only two league appearances he would ever make in an Everton shirt, pulled off a stunning double save to keep Everton ahead late on and with the final few minutes ticking away, the Blues broke out on a counter attack. Marouane Fellaini raced forward with the ball into the empty space and with two City defenders bearing down on him, he passed to Nikica Jelavic who was in acres of space to his right. Jelavic took a touch to set himself before cutting inside and hitting a shot that lifted over Hart and into the back of the net. The whole of Goodison Park went absolutely ballistic as Jelavic raced to the Gwladys Street-Bullens Road corner to be mobbed by his ecstatic team-mates. But almost certainly the most jubilant person of all at that very moment was David Moyes, as he marched triumphantly onto the pitch with his arms aloft, having secured his very last victory over Roberto Mancini, once more with all the odds stacked against him.

After Moyes’ departure from Everton, we have only beaten City once in the league in 12 attempts. The fighting spirit that was drilled in to those Everton players for the big games has to be returned again somehow. So far Marco Silva’s record against the big boys hasn’t been that bad at all, particularly at home as it was only City who did the double over Everton last season. It’ll be interesting to see how that record continues over this campaign with today’s game against City being our first clash with one of the so-called ‘Big Six’.