Erling Haaland missed a second-half penalty as struggling Manchester City were held to a 1-1 draw by Everton at the Etihad Stadium on Thursday.
The Norwegian, who has now scored just once in his last seven games, saw his spot-kick saved by England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, meaning City have now won just once in 13 games across all competitions.
Pep Guardiola's side had taken an early lead through Bernardo Silva's deflected effort only for Iliman Ndiaye to level the scores with a fine finish in the 36th minute.
That was to prove the end of the goals in a game that City should have won comfortably after dominating possession and registering 24 attempts on goal, but the fact only five of those were on target told its own story.
It was another battling performance from Everton, who followed up two goalless draws away to Arsenal and then at home to Chelsea with another point against one of the “Big Six”, albeit the latest one coming against a side desperately short of confidence.
The point lifted City up to sixth but they could lose further ground on the top four by the end of the day while Everton are now five points clear of the bottom three. City are three points shy of Nottingham Forest in fourth and 11 behind leaders Liverpool, with those two teams playing later on Thursday.
“We had plenty of chances to score goals,” City defender Manuel Akanji told BBC Sport. “Their goal came out of nowhere. Second half we had the penalty chance, we created opportunities but the ball didn't want to go in.
“We played really well. Maybe you see it differently but I think we played well compared to other matches.
“This can't happen that we nearly conceded the counterattack late on. Otherwise we defended well as a team and attacked great as a team.”
City nearly enjoyed a flying start to the game when a Phil Foden cross found Josko Gvardiol in the box after three minutes only for the Croatian to thump a header against the post with Pickford well beaten.
The home side were in front 10 minutes later though when winger Jeremy Doku slid a ball behind the Everton defence to find Silva down the left whose run and shot on the slide ricocheted off Jarrad Branthwaite before spinning into the net at the far post.
Silva should have had a second just after the half-hour mark when Haaland and Foden combined to tee-up the Portuguese only for the midfielder to send a strike with the outside of his left boot well wide of the target with the goal at his mercy.
And it was soon to prove a costly miss as City's recent defensive frailties once again were all too clear. Everton midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure was given far to much time and space to send over a cross that Akanji failed miserably to deal with, leaving Senegalese attacker Ndiaye free to fire home in impressive fashion.
It was Everton's first real chance of the game and their first away goal in more than two months as the two sides went in at the break all-square.
Straight after half-time, the lively Savinho saw his drilled low effort well saved by Pickford before Mateo Kovacic sent his shot from the rebound just wide of the target.
The key point of the game came a minute later when Savinho was brought down in the box by Vitaliy Mykolenko, who was lucky to avoid a second yellow card, and referee Simon Hooper pointed to the spot.
As Haaland prepared to take the kick, Everton captain Seamus Coleman picked up a yellow card as he attempted to have the final word with the big striker.
The gamesmanship appeared to work as Haaland's poor penalty was stopped by Pickford with the resulting rebound ending up back with the Norwegian who headed home but clearly well offside.
City's confidence and cutting edge promptly disappeared with Pickford not seriously troubled again for the rest of the match. In fact, Everton went close with a couple of deflected efforts of their own from Doucoure and Idrisse Gueye.
And manager Sean Dyche will be particularly frustrated that his team failed to trouble City goalkeeper Stefan Ortega when the Everton attack found themselves four against two in the City defence with the chance ending with Jack Harrison's shot being blocked.
“I was worried about coming here today because it will change, at some point they will hurt someone, but I felt we handled it well – the underlying feeling is that they will pull a result out of the bag at some point,” said Dyche.
“Great energy from the players. We saved the penalty and Jordan [Pickford] and the analysis team deserve credit. Jordan made a lot of good decisions today.”
