Everton Stun City in Thrilling 3-3 Draw
Manchester City walked into this one knowing exactly what was at stake. Win, and the pressure swung back on Arsenal. Drop anything, and the title race tilted north to London again.
They dropped two. And they did it in the most chaotic, gripping fashion imaginable.
City twice led, twice lost control, and needed a last-gasp Jeremy Doku equaliser to escape Goodison with a 3-3 draw that felt far more like a defeat than a point gained in the context of this Premier League run-in.
Doku ignites City, but control slips
For 40 minutes, it was the familiar City pattern: patient, probing, suffocating. Everton chased shadows, hung on, and waited for a mistake that never came.
Then Doku decided to take matters into his own hands.
In the 43rd minute, the Belgian winger twisted and turned around the Everton box, slipped at the crucial moment, and saw his first opening vanish. The move seemed to die with him on the turf. The ball, though, stayed alive. When it came back out to Doku on the edge of the area, he needed no second invitation, drilling a crisp strike beyond Gianluigi Donnarumma to give City a deserved lead.
That should have been the platform. City had control, the scoreboard, and the rhythm. They had Everton exactly where they wanted them.
They let them back in.
The intensity dipped, the passes became a fraction slower, and Everton sensed something. A loose touch here, a half-chance there. The match, once one-way traffic, began to tilt.
Barry pounces amid VAR drama
The turning point came in the 68th minute, wrapped in confusion and controversy.
Everton were on the ball but going nowhere in particular when Marc Guehi suddenly found it at his feet under little pressure, with Thierno Barry loitering nearby in an offside position. Barry looked out of the move, irrelevant to the phase. Guehi turned towards his own goal, casually rolling a pass back towards Donnarumma.
He never got the chance to relax. Barry sprang to life, reading the pass, darting in, and poking the ball home from close range.
The flag went up. The goal, initially, did not stand. Barry had been offside, after all, when the earlier phase unfolded.
Then came the twist.
Once VAR confirmed that Guehi had taken full possession before playing the ball, Barry’s earlier position no longer mattered. He was judged onside in the new phase of play. Goal given. Goodison roared. City stared at one another, stunned by the sheer avoidability of it all.
From there, the game broke open.
Everton flip the script
The equaliser didn’t just lift Everton; it unleashed them.
From their next meaningful attack, they struck again. In the 73rd minute, a corner swung in, bodies jostling, and Jake O'Brien rose to meet it. His header flew home, turning a once-comfortable City lead into a full-blown crisis. Everton 2, City 1. The champions were rattled.
City pushed up, chasing a response, and left space behind. Everton smelled blood.
On 81 minutes, Barry struck again. A loose challenge from substitute Mateo Kovacic in midfield opened the door, Everton surged forward on the break, and Barry finished the move to complete his brace. From 1-0 down to 3-1 up in little more than a quarter of an hour. Goodison was bouncing, City were reeling, and Arsenal fans everywhere were suddenly sitting up a little straighter.
Haaland wakes up, Doku rescues a point
Erling Haaland had barely been a character in the story until that point.
Two touches in the box. One shot. Another quiet night in a season that has contained more of those than City would like to admit. Then, almost out of nowhere, he snapped into focus.
Straight from kickoff after Barry’s second, City combined quickly, Kovacic involved again, and Haaland finally found the moment he’d been waiting for. A sharp move, a decisive finish. 3-2. No celebration, no time. Just a sprint back to halfway. The chase was back on.
Everton retreated, clung on, and tried to run the clock down. City poured forward. Crosses, corners, half-openings. The tension grew with every added minute.
There was one last act.
Deep in stoppage time, City won a corner and sent everyone forward, Donnarumma included. Chaos filled the box. The ball broke loose, rolled out to the edge of the area, and there again stood Doku, in almost the same patch of grass from which he’d scored the opener.
Same technique. Same conviction. Another clean, ruthless strike.
The ball flew in. 3-3. City players barely celebrated; they just looked relieved. Everton sank to the turf, a famous win snatched away at the death.
Arsenal back in control
When the noise died down and the table refreshed, the reality bit.
Arsenal sit five points clear at the top, having played 35 games. City trail with 71 points from 34, a game in hand but a shrinking margin for error and a goal difference that now sits just behind Arsenal’s.
Arsenal’s run-in reads: West Ham United away on May 10, Burnley away on May 18, Crystal Palace away on May 24. All on the road, all loaded with jeopardy, but all in their hands.
City still have their extra fixture to play and the pedigree of serial champions. Yet nights like this linger. Leads squandered, control lost, character tested.
Doku’s brilliance salvaged a point. Whether it salvaged their title defence is another question entirely.
