Manchester City vs Everton: Gabriel Jesus finds form as Pep Guardiola’s side regain Premier League lead

Manchester City returned to the top of the Premier League by beating Everton 3-1 in response to their first defeat of the season last week.

Gabriel Jesus added to his only goal of the season with two strikes as City eased their way to victory.

Things could have become a little awkward for the hosts when Dominic Calvert-Lewin pulled one back, but Pep Guardiola brought on Raheem Sterling, who finished the job with a close-range header.

Here’s five things we learned from the Etihad:

City bounce-back to regain top spot

After suffering their first league defeat of the season, City rounded of their bounce-back week with victory and returned to the top of the table, until, Liverpool take on Manchester United on Sunday that is.

Guardiola made a point before the game about the importance of beginning winning runs as soon as possible after dropping points. “Last season one of the secrets was when we dropped points we were able to make another big,” he said.

The City boss will be delighted with the mid-week win to top their Champions League group and the performance that followed against Everton. Barring one or two direct Everton attacks, City largely dominated proceedings in the early kick-off and displayed some of their best, clinical football on their way to a comfortable win.

Jesus finds Christmas form

At this point in the year last season Jesus was one of the form strikers and a player to be feared. Fast forward 12 months and the young Brazilian has been struggling for goals in the Premier League. Jesus had scored eight goals in 15 matches at this point last season, but in this campaign his only league goal had come in August. That was until Everton came to town.

With Sergio Aguero struggling for fitness and City entering the busy festive period, Jesus will emerge as an important player in Guardiola’s side as the number of matches increase.

Jesus took his first goal with the expert movement and precision that makes it incredibly easy to forget that he is just 21-years-old. He was on his way beyond in the defence with the full knowledge that Leroy Sane was going to find him with a through pass and he made no mistake with his clinical finish when the ball came , the second showed equally good positional awareness.

Everton follow Chelsea’s lead in attacking far post

Marco Silva promised that his Everton side will come to the Etihad and attack City, and, to be fair, he was true to his word.

It’s clear that the Everton analysists did their homework on City’s 2-0 defeat against Chelsea last weekend, their first league defeat of the season, and they almost got their reward.

The visitors used direct passing to quickly work the ball to the left-flank and from there looked to exploit Fabian Delph’s positioning at the far post. This worked well in the first half and they twice came close to scoring, the best chance falling to Richarlison, who fired wide with a volley, but they got their reward when Calvert-Lewin won a header against the left-back and got Everton on the scoresheet.

De Bruyne returns at the right time for City

In another routine win for City, one of the most memorable and important moments of this game for supporters will be the return of Kevin De Bruyne. The Belgian midfielder came on to make his fourth league appearance of the season after a series of set-backs have kept him watching on from the sideline.

His return is timely given the injury to David Silva and City will be delighted to see he showed no sign of playing below his best.

Sterling also came on from the bench, such is the number of quality players available to Guardiola, and scored to round-off a high-profile week for the City winger.

Just how good is Calvert-Lewin?

Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s impressive performances for England youth teams rightly attracted interest from top sides and he rightly earned a move to big-spending Everton aged 19, although things have not kicked-on as expected.

Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho drew attention to his lack of playing time and development when he hit back about his use of Marcus Rashford. “Rashford is not Dominic Calvert-Lewin, [he’s a] Manchester United player with an incredible number of appearances and an incredible number of minutes played at the highest level in the best possible competitions,” he said in September.

On his fifth start of the season, Calvert-Lewin has little to work with but hit back for Everton with a smart header to remind Silva that he can be the player trusted to lead Everton’s line.