Michael Ball tackles the big issues at Hill Dickinson Stadium ahead of Everton's game against Manchester City
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Despite his famous “knife to a gunfight” comment, David Moyes always seemed to have an impressive record against Manchester City first time around at Everton.
Unfortunately for me, I was sometimes in that Manchester City team and on the receiving end of it.
We used to come off the pitch thinking: “How have we got beaten there?” Often, it would be Tim Cahill or someone else at the end snatching it.
Moyes would often sit back, let us dictate the play and a lot of the ball but then at the end of the day, they’d make it count from set-pieces.
Pep Guardiola is on the charge for the title again but while his players are absolute winners who have been there before, they’re going to be nervous.
He won’t be wanting to come to Hill Dickinson Stadium where City are going to have to roll their sleeves up.
The longer the game goes on, City will have to push forward, but we’ve seen this season that they can be vulnerable on the counter-attack.
We’ve got people like Iliman Ndiaye who can get us up the pitch and I thought he played really well in the reverse fixture at the Etihad Stadium. Hopefully, he can do the same again.
We know they’re going to be pushing, so can we hit them on the break? We’ve had top performances this season against top opposition and probably should have got more from the games.
As well as trying to stop City’s title ambitions, it’s more important for us to stay in the European hunt because we don’t want to go four games without a win.
Everton have got four cup finals between now and the end of the season and need to leave everything out there and push themselves against one of the best teams around.