Julian Alvarez can take Man City fight to Erling Haaland at Everton

Manchester City head to Everton looking to get back on track in the Premier League.

Pep Guardiola's side made history in Jeddah last week as they were crowned world champions, and also enjoyed a terrific night for their young players in Belgrade earlier in the month. However, their struggles in the Premier League have continued with a collapse at home to Crystal Palace meaning it is only one win in six.

Liverpool's draw with Arsenal during City's absence has ensured no team has sped away in the league table, meaning the champions are not at risk of being left adrift. But the sooner they start winning league games the better as they aim to win an unprecedented fourth title in a row.

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As City return to domestic action, here are some of the talking points for the game.

City haven't been good enough defensively this season. You could argue that's because they haven't been good enough in attack, but the simple matter is that they have only kept one clean sheet in their last 10 games and that was against United.

A strong backline is the key to any title challenge and the Blues need to step up their individual and collective performances to get back to making it hard for teams to score against them. Crystal Palace was the latest example of opponents simply not having to do very much to beat Ederson. Ruben Dias and Kyle Walker are among the players who have been below their best recently, although the responsibility lies with the whole team.

When it was put to Guardiola recently that City have conceded a lot of late goals, he suggested the problem was not