Aston Villa vs Man City LIVE: Premier League result, final score and reaction tonight after Leon Bailey earns draw

Tonight’s late kick off sees Pep Guardiola’s Man City travel to Aston Villa looking to finish the day at the top of the Premier League table.

They’ll do so if they beat Steven Gerrard’s struggling side and it looks as though it’s going to be a tough outing for the Villans. They’re up against Erling Haaland who already has nine goals in five games since joining City and will be hoping to add to that tally before the Champions League starts this week.

That said, Guardiola may elect to rest his star striker with an eye on the the European group stages in a few days time. We’ll find out if Haaland starts in the not too distant future.

Four months after Jurgen Klopp was closing in on the quadruple, he has a less prestigious quartet. The German remains unbeaten at Goodison Park but a fourth goalless draw across Stanley Park of his reign meant that, winless as they remain, Everton emerged with more credit from the 241st Merseyside derby than Liverpool.

A game of 36 shots was far more dramatic than the scoreline suggested. It had everything but the goal, with one disallowed, the woodwork rattled four times and a quite brilliant performance by Jordan Pickford. His meetings with Liverpool have featured harrowing errors and a terrible injury to Virgil van Dijk. This time Pickford traded the role of villain for that of hero, with an extraordinary save from Darwin Nunez, a very fine one from Roberto Firmino and an invaluable injury-time stop to thwart Mohamed Salah, while the Dutchman may have been fortunate to avoid a red card for a challenge on Amadou Onana. If controversy can be a constant in such fixtures, along with an Everton wait for a home win that now dates back to 2010, Liverpool could be concerned by more recent trends.

Nine points have escaped their grasp already this season and, while they mounted a second-half onslaught, a new habit of slow starts is impeding them. At least this time they avoided conceding the first goal in a game, albeit because there were none.

Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk says that Liverpool should have won the game telling BT Sport: “Obviously they had a couple of opportunities and an offside goal. They had two good saves from Alisson, I think we had a little more [chances] than that. We should have won in my opinion. It feels like we lost two points.

“We wanted to stay calm. They wanted to be aggressive, feed the crowd. We had to keep our cool and play quickly from side to side, because the spaces were so massive between the lines. Sometimes we did that, sometimes we didn’t and created unnecessary problems.

“We changed system a little bit [at half-time] but it’s still the same principles. At times it went well, but at times we could have done better. It feels like we lost points here, but it’s still early in the season. We have to stick together, focus on winning games and take it step by step.

“A clean sheet also wasn’t a bad thing at this stage.”

Post-match reaction from Everton’s Jordan Pickford who told BT Sport: “We didn’t get the three points but we got the draw and can start building now.

“I made some good saves, Alisson made some good saves, but that’s our job. It’s my first clean sheet of the season and another building block for the team to get better.

“We have four points from four draws, but if we keep building we will get stronger and get the wins.”

It was a day for the goalkeepers at Goodison Park as neither team could break the the defences of Jordan Pickford or Alisson Becker.

90+7 mins: There’s the full-time whistle. The game ends all square.

It’s been an entertaining nil-nil but a nil-nil nonetheless. Jordan Pickford and Alisson Becker were both exceptional in goal and they needed to be.

The points are shared at Goodison Park.

90+5 mins: Off the post!

Liverpool fly through the pitch quickly and work the ball to Salah in the box. He shoots and Pickford gets a touch to turn it onto the post!

The ball come sback to Salah and he turns it wide with the follow-up.

90+3 mins: Liverpool throw men into the box and Tarkowski gets in a block from Salah’s left-footed effort. The Reds want a penalty but the referee lets play go on.

90 mins: Six minutes of added time to play.

Everton fly forward on the counter-attack and set up a three-on-three. Liverpool are scrambling to get back and Milner misses out in an attempted tackle of Dwight McNeil.

McNeil gives the ball to Gray who shoots but can’t beat Alisson.

86 mins: Save! Mo Salah collects the ball just outside the box and flicks it in with the outside of his left boot. It’s a perfect pass for Roberto Firmino who turns the ball towards goal with his first touch and forces Jordan Pickford into a leaping save to his right.

Pickford has to stretch to get there but his strong right hand keeps the ball out. How crucial will that stop prove to be?