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London - Manchester City fans are used to their team doing things the hard way so they will have hardly been surprised when, with fourth place there for the taking, they fell to a 2-1 Premier League defeat by Everton on Saturday.
The result made it seven wins in eight meetings for the Toffees and ensured a nervous finale to the season with Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, who visit City on Tuesday, still in with an outside chance of overhauling them and snatching the Champions League qualifying round slot.
City, who face Stoke City in the FA Cup final next week, are fourth on 62 points from 35 games. Fifth-placed Liverpool have 55 from 35 and Tottenham Hotspur, who host Blackpool later on Saturday, have 55 from 34.
Arsenal, who visit Stoke on Sunday, have 67 points while Chelsea are second on 70 and Manchester United top on 73 ahead of their crunch title clash at Old Trafford on Sunday.
West Ham United ended a run of five defeats with a 1-1 home draw against Blackburn Rovers but remain bottom of the standings and destined for relegation after Robbie Keane missed a glorious late chance to win it.
Wigan Athletic, who host West Ham next week, drew 1-1 at Aston Villa to climb above Blackpool out of the relegation zone.
Birmingham City are still not safe, four points above the drop zone after another defeat, 2-1 at Newcastle United, but Sunderland are after their late 2-1 win at Bolton Wanderers.
Manchester City looked to have overcome their problems against Everton as they dominated the first half at Goodison Park.
David Silva looked a class above anyone else on the pitch and quickly set up Patrick Vieira, who blazed over the bar.
He was the provider again after 28 minutes when Yaya Toure lifted the ball over Tim Howard for a deserved lead. Silva sent Toure through again after an hour but this time Howard saved well to deny him a second and City paid a heavy price.
Sylvain Distin equalised against his former club when he headed in a Mikel Arteta free kick in the 65th minute and seven minutes later Phil Neville swung in a cross which Leon Osman thumped in with a magnificent header.
"It was impossible to lose this game today after all the chances we had," City manager Roberto Mancini told Sky Sports.
"I don't know why we stayed too deep in the second half, for 15 minutes we kept our defenders near the box and for them it was easy to play the long ball. It was strange, but we didn't deserve to lose.
"The players need to learn that when we have a chance to score we can't be selfish, it's not important who scores."
The Italian, however, had no concerns about hanging on to fourth place. "We don't have a problem for this...if we had won today we could have prepared very well for the FA Cup final but now we'll have to play very hard on Tuesday."
Everton have been one of the form teams of the second half of the season, although their run has come a little late.
However, manager David Moyes was delighted with the performance of his seventh-placed side.
"A brilliant performance by our players in the second half, it didn't look likely after 45 minutes and we did well to come in only 1-0 down," he said.
"We started showing our spirit and our attitude and it was a great goal to win it."
