Soccer Football - Premier League - Manchester City v Everton - Etihad Stadium, Manchester, Britain - December 26, 2024 Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola before the match REUTERS/Phil Noble
MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola looked aghast at numerous points of his struggling team's 1-1 Boxing Day draw with Everton on Thursday, burying his face in his hands several times while watching their miserable run of poor results continue.
Bernardo Silva scored a rare early goal and City appeared poised for a victory finally, but Iliman Ndiaye levelled and then Erling Haaland missed a penalty leaving Guardiola's men provisionally sixth in the table.
City, who have just one victory to show for their last 13 matches across all competitions, could drop as low as eighth by day's end.
But Guardiola bristled when asked about his body language.
"No, it's not true. My body language was positive, yes, because the team played really good. I'm not agreeing," Guardiola said.
Confidence has been in short supply for City, and it was much of the same on Thursday as the energy in the squad and among the fans at Etihad Stadium seemed to wane after Haaland's missed penalty in the second half.
"We have to bounce back mentally," Guardiola said. "Life is not easy. Sport is not easy. When that (penalty miss) happened, it's okay, we still had a lot of minutes to play.
"A team like Arsenal and Chelsea could not score," he added, in reference to Everton's two previous games, both 0-0 draws. "We created, we did it, and incredible how (City players) run and fight and do everything. Some games have not been good, but today, the case was it was well played, this is my feeling.
"But football is about winning, football is about you score goals and you don't concede. The last month, month and a half, we are not able to do it."
Guardiola's team has been hit hard by injuries this season, and Kyle Walker missed Thursday's match due to illness while Jack Grealish suffered a minor injury in training earlier in the week.
Everton boss Sean Dyche was expecting a stiff challenge from City, both because of their opponents' glittering record as four-times defending league champions and their hunger to end their run of poor performances.
"I was worried about coming here today because it will change, at some point they will hurt someone," Dyche said. "But I felt we handled it well -- the underlying feeling that they (City) pull a result out of the bag at some point."
Everton squandered a four-on-two break late in stoppage time that would have sent shell-shocked City to their seventh loss in their last nine league games.
(Reporting by Lori Ewing, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
