The west coast excursion continues with a stop in at Brent’s Deli (to sample their take on pastrami. Being from New York, we’ll stick with Katz’s), where lunchtime gave us a chance to check out David Moyes’ men away at the Eastlands. Early goals from Tim Cahil – off his head, as if he scores any other way – and left back Leighton Baines got the toffees off to a flying start.
What of constant disruption Carlos Tevez, you ask? Why the Argentine decided to settle his dispute by expressing his “absolute commitment” to the club, retained the captain’s armband, and started the game of course. From the mouth of Mancini:
“Carlos is a world-class player whose contribution since he joined the club has been invaluable. I am pleased that we are now able to focus on pure football matters and to be able to look forward to Carlos continuing to play a significant role in the club’s progress.”
Things now peachy keen, City entered the game facing an Everton side who hadn’t posted a win since October, and with the chance to go top of the Premiership at Christmas for the first time since 1929. Though down quickly 0-2, City’s odds took a turn back in the favor with the ejection of Everton’s Nigerian striker Victor Anichebe on sixty minutes.
Though City continued to pound on the people’s club, the defense held firm and Tim Howard managed his box with an expertise he seems to have been missing for a few months. He wasn’t able to deflect City’s seventy-second minute goal, a blindly struck effort that was moving well-wide before striking Jagielka’s leg and deflecting in for an own goal. The sky blues pressed and pressed, and Balotelli (who started with Tevez) did look like he had an opportunity late on, beating Howard and hitting the post before coming up lame and being replaced by Jo (loaned to Everton last season, and coming out to meet his former teammates for the first time since).
Everton’s desperate defending refused to fail, and after four minutes of extra time the game was called, sending Moyes and his charges into a joyous team clutch around Howard, and seeing City stuck in third position on 32 points, two points behind leaders Man United who have two games in hand.
Thanks to Jet Blue’s DirectTV feed I was able to catch Borussia Dortmund’s second only loss of the Bundesliga season, to Eintract Frankfurt. We in the CultFootball bullpen have been meaning to spend more time with the German league, but with our attention split between england, spain, italy and all the cups, sacrifices had to be made. Amazing how a cross-country flight can provide such needed pockets of time.
US national team midfielder 
There’s really only one game that matters today: the Arsenal v 
Romanian side CFR Cluj were bested away to FC Basel in group play today, effectively eliminating them from the knockout phase of the tournament. It was a meeting of minnows, but with great consequences, and while the Cruj players clearly didn’t have the belly fire to mount a proper offensive, their manager, 