Manchester City 3 Everton 1: Ross Barkley nudges Yaya Toure into past but his future looks beyond Goodison

The execution of his goal - minimum backlift - reminded City of what they were missing

Ross Barkley celebrates giving Everton in the lead in the 18th minute with a superb run and shot from the edge of the area (Getty Images)

He is the one they’ve wanted here for two years: the perceived successor to Yaya Touré, who would be six months into a Manchester City career now if it were not for the bingo numbers they knew Everton would have been asking, had they even let a conversation about Ross Barkley start. It was £50m, give or take, and City have had their limits when it comes to spending in recent years.

It was not just the execution of his goal in the 18th minute – minimum backlift – which reminded City of what they were missing, when he put Everton ahead, but the balance, poise and strength which took him on his raking run deep into City territory. It is what Barkley is capable of when given the encouragement. And for those who despaired of the challenges thrown in which failed to deter him – Nicolas Otamendi, the defender at the centre of Real Madrid’s planning last summer, could not lay anything on the midfielder – there was also the question of Touré’s contribution to consider.

The casual indifference to the way Touré shuffled across to stem that counter-attack in its early stages summed up the difference between the two men last night. There were moments when the pair went toe-to-toe which revealed much the same. They both sprawled in the City penalty area in the later stages of the first half and it was Barkley who leapt up to resume; Touré who lay there, gradually clambering up and retreating after him, blowing.

The second half was 10 minutes old when the younger man, with his elder on his shoulder, rolled the ball under his studs, paused, and peeled away easily into space. When Touré delivered the strike at Wembley Stadium against Manchester United five years ago which took them to an FA Cup final and silverware at last, he was the team’s nexus. He lasted 66 minutes last night. Only when Kevin de Bruyne took his place did City find some ignition.

Sergio Aguero celebrates his winning goal (Getty Images)

There was not exactly an abundance of what Roberto Martinez, the Everton manager, had asked from Barkley – the most scrutinised and analysed of players – to provide, which is to say a little more careless abandon, riskier passes, a poorer pass completion rate in the final third if that’s what it took to create the magic. But there were many more ways to measure his contribution. The light-touch lay-offs, the measured ball into the left channel for Gerard Deulofeu, with instructions as to how he might have made it pay.

Yet though the criminal injustice of City’s second goal with 20 minutes to go will live long in Everton minds, teed up as it was by Raheem Sterling when the ball was over the byline, the predictability of what we then witnessed will surely give Barkley cause to wonder whether his is a club that can meet his ambition.

Everton runs through his bones and it is why the prospect of John Stones and Romelu Lukaku leaving this summer seems far greater: Stones to take up one of the clutch of better offers, Lukaku perhaps to look to the continent, given his agent Mino Raiola’s influence at Juventus. But the galaxy of talents at Everton – a side which on paper looks thrilling – will not advance when they are so incapable of shoring up their own defence.

There was uncertainty there from the start last night, with Stones shuffled to right back to accommodate Phil Jagielka, and the manner of the goals they conceded suggested all along that Barkley’s efforts might count for nothing.

The first goal was a piece of pinball – Sergio Aguero’s shot striking Jagielka, rebounding for Fernandinho and deflecting in off Leighton Baines. The third was worse still: the distance over which De Bruyne recycled a ball to cross – 40 yards – should not have given Aguero the space to head the winner. He nodded it in like a training ground routine.

Towards the end, Barkley was led from the pitch to have a nose bleed stemmed, impatiently waiting for the physio to staunch the flow, then to be allowed to return. He stood in the rain near the ‘D’ of the penalty area in the rain, socks over his knees, shoving his nostril wedges further up his nose, in muted conversation with Baines. Wondering, you had to imagine, where that hold on Wembley had gone.

He and Everton return to a more prosaic reality now, of an average Premier League campaign, a deepening unpopularity for Martinez and a dismantling of this side’s best talents, six months from now. Barkley has been with this club for 11 long years now and no-one wants to be in their shirt at a Wembley final more than him. But another colossal opportunity has passed Everton by. He may need to move on to find the next.