Manchester City's Premier League title ambitions may have been severely damaged by a thirteen-minute passage of play at Goodison Park, according to BBC Sport's account of a six-goal thriller that swung dramatically against the visitors in the second half.
The BBC describes the spell as chaotic, and the word earns its place. City, who have built their recent dominance on the capacity to control matches even when not at their best, apparently surrendered that control at precisely the moment when the season demanded composure. A six-goal match at Everton — a side with their own pressures and preoccupations — is the sort of fixture City would ordinarily expect to manage, if not entirely command.
The title race context makes the slip more consequential than a single dropped result might normally suggest. City have won the Premier League title before under sustained pressure, and they know better than most how fine the margins can be across a long campaign. But squandering points against a side in Everton's position is the kind of result that rivals elsewhere in the table will note with interest, even if they are careful not to say so publicly.
What precisely unfolded in those thirteen minutes is the detail BBC Sport's report centres on, though the broader shape of the story is familiar: a side that has looked intermittently vulnerable this season found themselves exposed once more at the worst possible juncture. Whether the goals conceded reflected systemic defensive frailty or a brief collective lapse is a question the City manager will now have to answer, both publicly and in the training sessions that follow.
The road ahead remains long enough that City cannot be discounted. Title races have been overturned from far less promising positions, and the fixture list will offer further opportunity for rivals to drop points of their own. But the margin for further error has narrowed, and the manner of this result — not merely the scoreline, but the concentrated collapse within it — will be harder to dismiss than a narrow away defeat might have been. BBC Sport frames it as a remarkable finale. For City, remarkable is not quite the adjective they would have chosen.