Alan Shearer has praised Everton's physical approach to handling Erling Haaland and believes further teams may now follow suit in a bid to thwart the Norwegian.
Haaland opened the scoring on Saturday afternoon against Frank Lampard's side, but was uncharacteristically hot-headed throughout the game and was unable to find a way past the Blues' resilient backline during the second half.
Going head-to-head with Ben Godfrey at the Etihad Stadium, the Premier League top scorer was seen wildly celebrating his goal in the face of the Everton centre-back and was not shy of pushing Godfrey around during the contest. Haaland ended the first half by putting in a late challenge on Vitalii Mykolenko, resulting in a yellow card.
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It was Everton and Godfrey who ended up having the last laugh after Demarai Gray's stunning, second half equaliser and Shearer has saluted Everton's ability to match Haaland at his own game which helped earn a share of the spoils.
"Both players really enjoyed it, you can tell," he said on Match of the Day of the battle between Haaland and Godfrey. "Maybe not enough teams have gone toe-to-toe and tried to be physical with Haaland, but that's fine - he enjoys that side of the game.
"They were both giving as good as they were getting and it was great to watch. There's the reaction when he [Haaland] scores, that's fine; you're allowed to do that. He's laughing and saying 'get off me'. Both players were smiling and really going at it."
Offering a view as to whether other Premier League sides will take inspiration from the no-nonsense display of Everton's No.22, Danny Murphy added: "It's a balance because if you make a player like that too angry... he seems to score whether he is happy or angry."
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