In the spirit of a result that bore little relation to the data we might be excused a speculative punt regarding the meaning of it all. Was this some kind of cosmic intervention, perhaps a godlike arm reaching down from Delphi to nudge the title and Pep Guardiola away from Manchester?
Any who switched to the snooker at half-time would have been baffled by a finale that required Manchester City to score twice late on to take a point from a contest they dominated.
The absence of jeopardy was marked during a supine first half of Evertonian survivalism which revived the crushing sense of inevitably that accompanied City’s peak Pep period.
That this evolving iteration of the Guardiola model can throw up results like this from a seemingly impregnable position begs the question: is something seismic upon us?
Ten years and counting is a long time for any coach to spend at one club, and not just any club. Guardiola is football’s supreme being, one of the great innovators who, powered by a nation state, married aesthetics and power to an irresistible degree.
For 45 minutes at the Hill Dickinson Stadium it appeared this iteration might be the best yet, a front three of Jeremy Doku, Erling Haaland and Antoine Semenyo supplied by the waspish prompts of late-phase Bernardo Silva and Rayan Cherki, forcing Everton into a classic Moyesian rearguard.
Peak City might have cracked half a dozen to tighten their grip around Arsenal’s throat. Yet there is a creeping unreliability, even vulnerability about this ensemble that can be exposed if the opposition sets about them as Everton did, which in turn might hint at a similar fragility in the gaffer.
Was it my imagination or was Guardiola weirdly sanguine about the surrender of two points and the initiative in a title duel that looked to be heading towards a seventh coronation in 10 years? Like, whatever happens, he is working to a timetable that only he knows.
Even Michael Keane’s hooligan lunge that might have snapped Doku’s ankle in two was left to others to deconstruct. “Your pundits can say it,” was all Guardiola could muster.
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All of this is playing out against the backdrop of the inquiry into the financial architecture that transformed City and re-ordered the nature of competition in the Premier League.
City deny any financial wrongdoing in a case that at the very least calls into question the Premier League’s administration of a competition sold as world leading.
Guardiola rightly points out that the reputational damage is already done to his fine team. Supporters of other clubs are adjusted to the mind-bending sums that took a fading relic of old football to the vanguard of the new.
They don’t need a tribunal to pass judgment on the legality of the investments made. Either way the game has been warped by the inequalities that made City the team they are.
As Jose Mourinho gleefully pointed out in a discussion last week of Guardiola’s place in history, the beauty of his teams are undeniable, but, at City at least, he is benefitting from a structure that few in the history of the game have enjoyed.
The narrative around City, fuelled to a large degree by the failure of the Premier League to conclude their investigation into 130 charges of financial impropriety, inevitably colours the Guardiola epoch, casting doubt on the validity of his work.
He is reconciled to this of course, and, persuaded by assurances from the owners that compliance with the regulations has always been met, has carried on regardless.
However, as the weeks and months drag on, you wonder how long Guardiola can keep the energy going, and moments like Monday serve up snippets, tiny shifts in behaviour and attitude that invite us to wonder if something more fundamental is in the wind.
The draw at Everton has certainly tilted the momentum back towards Arsenal. City face Brentford on Saturday night knowing the title is out of their hands, a prospect as unthinkable at half time on Monday as the idea Pep might walk.
Yet, as that result reminds us, little is as it seems in this game.
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