Doku rescues Manchester City with 97th-minute equaliser at Everton

Jeremy Doku’s 97th-minute equaliser kept Manchester City alive, but the 3-3 draw at Everton felt more like a warning than a rescue. City had led 2-0 at half-time, then watched Everton score three times in 13 second-half minutes before Doku’s late right-foot finish denied a defeat that would have badly damaged Pep Guardiola’s title chase.

City’s first-ever visit to the Hill Dickinson Stadium began as if the visitors might control everything. They had 85% possession and five corners in the opening 20 minutes, and Doku gave them a half-time lead with two sharp finishes, including a left-foot curler just before the break. For a team chasing Arsenal at the top of the Premier League, it looked like a familiar City pattern: patience, pressure and control.

The game turned after the interval. Everton, driven by David Moyes, found a route back when Thierno Barry punished a short backpass to score the first of his two goals, initially flagged offside before the decision was changed. Jake O’Brien then headed Everton in front from a James Garner corner, and Barry added his second on the counterattack to make it 3-1. City responded instantly through Erling Haaland, who pulled one back immediately after the hosts went two goals clear, but the damage to Guardiola’s side had already been done.

City kept pushing until the end, with Gianluigi Donnarumma even sent up for late corners as the visitors chased an equaliser. Doku delivered it deep into stoppage time, a finish that preserved a point but also underlined how close City came to another damaging slip. It was Manchester City’s third-latest Premier League goal since 2006-07, behind John Stones’ strike against Arsenal in September 2024 and Gabriel Jesus’ goal against Everton in February 2019.

The point left City five behind Arsenal, with one game in hand, and sharply narrowed the margin for error in the run-in. Arsenal now need three wins to secure the title, and City’s latest collapse raised a harder question than the draw answered: whether a side built on control and defensive certainty has lost too much of both at the decisive moment.