Manchester City's season is not yet a write-off according to Manuel Akanji, but he has given up hope of winning the Premier League title.
City were held to a 1-1 draw by Everton at the Etihad Stadium on Thursday, with Iliman Ndiaye canceling out Bernardo Silva's deflected opener.
Erling Haaland saw a second-half penalty saved by Jordan Pickford, and Pep Guardiola's side have now won just one game in their last 13 games in all competitions.
City have also dropped twelve points from gaining positions in the Premier League this season, more than in all of last season (10).
12 – Manchester City have lost twelve points from gaining positions in the Premier League this season, more than in all of last season (10). Slipping. pic.twitter.com/A5X0QI8lHC
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) December 26, 2024
Trailing league leaders Liverpool by 11 points ahead of the Reds' Boxing Day match against Leicester City, Akanji says retaining the Premier League title for a fifth season in a row is out of reach, although he stressed that Guardiola's team has other goals.
Speaking to Amazon Prime, Akanji said: “The season is not over yet [the title] is not a goal for us at the moment.
“We have to concentrate game by game and the next game against Leicester won't be easy either, in the form we are in.
“We have to focus on the positives. We did a lot of things great. We defended and attacked well, but we couldn't finish as well as we wanted, otherwise we could have scored three or four goals.”
City had 24 shots against Everton, five of which were on target and created chances worth 2.0 expected goals, although Haaland's penalty alone was worth 0.78 xG.
The hosts had 49 touches in the opponent's penalty area, creating four big chances, which were defined by Opta as a chance from which a player would reasonably be expected to score.
But for all their dominance, City might have been punished late on had Everton taken advantage of some promising counter-attacks.
“I think we did a lot more for the match. We created a lot of chances, unfortunately we could only score one goal and we conceded one out of nowhere, but that's the way football is,” Akanji added.
Guardiola, meanwhile, saw City as deserved victors.
“We have played very well, but we are now in a period where we are creating, but then we have to give in [from the opponent’s first attack,” he told Amazon Prime.
“Confidence will come with results, but the performance was really good offensively and defensively but we could not get the result we wanted.”
53′ ENGLAND’S NUMBER ONE SAVES HAALAND’S SPOT KICK!!
[1-1] #MCIEVE pic.twitter.com/9C9N2UtGp1
— Everton (@Everton) December 26, 2024
Everton captain Seamus Coleman was shown a yellow card for trying to keep Haaland off the pitch in the build-up to the penalty, which was saved by Pickford, who has now saved seven penalties in the Premier League during his time at Everton.
In the history of the competition, only Brad Friedel at Blackburn Rovers (10) and Jussi Jaaskelainen at Bolton Wanderers (nine) have more penalty saves with one club.
Asked by Amazon Prime what he said to Haaland, Coleman joked: “Merry Christmas!”
He added: “We came here to get a point and we sometimes do everything we can to win. There was no swearing!”
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