Everton 0 Manchester City 0: The millions who watched this match live in China may have found themselves on the edge of whatever they were sitting on as they compared and contrasted the efforts of Li Tie and Sun Jihai in their little local derby, but as for the rest, this was Sunday sofa football at its most soporific.

Turn down the volume and press snooze control.

Even those within Goodison were enveloped in long periods of dumbfounded silence. City fans had some small cause to celebrate; Evertonians were engulfed in further gloom, although at least their team is now out of the bottom three.

For the second successive Premiership match Wayne Rooney did not last the distance, although this time - unlike at the Reebok Stadium, where he flounced off, refusing to take his manager's outstretched hand - this substitution was carried out in the privacy of the dressing-room.

David Moyes refused to be drawn into any debate but said it was a tactical decision.

Rooney had begun playing just behind Tomasz Radzinski and Francis Jeffers but rarely looked likely to influence the outcome and totally missed the one chance that came his way when he mistimed a header.

Moyes might have withdrawn Jeffers when he reverted to 4-4-2 after half-time, but it was Rooney who went and so the chuntering grows. What odds that neither Rooney nor Michael Owen will finish the season on Merseyside?

And how had Rooney responded? "What goes on in the dressing-room is between me and etc, etc." Moyes was in no mood to explain himself either.

A decidedly ordinary first half was made to look more than half-decent as the second unfolded, while what passed for excitement was reserved for the last 10 minutes, when the standard of play resembled a schoolyard kick-about with everybody chasing the ball. "Both sides decided there was no point having a midfield," said Kevin Keegan.

It was in this period that Thomas Gravesen should have won the match for Everton. City were caught short of numbers at the back and Radzinski ran hard down the right, gathering in straggling City defenders as he ran. Gravesen drifted into the clear and received the perfect ball from the Canadian, only to hit a left-foot shot against the post with Kevin Ellegaard, who had replaced the injured David Seaman, totally beaten.

To have lost with so little time remaining would have been harsh on City, who had generally looked the more likely team to score - particularly in the first half when, prompted by Steve McManaman, the trio of Robbie Fowler, Trevor Sinclair and Nicolas Anelka had several promising exchanges without ever delivering a shot to extend Nigel Martyn.

Keegan put it down to a lack of confidence and a tendency to err on the side of caution. "Good situations were ruined by the final pass."

But his team ought to have done better in the second half, Everton having lost Tony Hibbert with an ankle injury, which propmted a radical defensive reorganisation. City needed to find width against two stand-in full backs but failed to do so.

Guardian Service