Demarai Gray believes it is in Everton’s ‘DNA’ to fight and battle as he opened up on what was going through his mind ahead of his wonder goal against Manchester City.
Demarai Gray said: “I don’t think it’s just when we play City, it’s part of our character, and the club’s DNA, fighting and digging deep for results. We left everything out there today. On the back of our last performances, football-wise, it was a massive improvement today. Obviously when you come to the Etihad you have to change your game plan a little bit but obviously we had a plan and stuck to it well. We got our reward with the goal and after that we dug deep so there are a lot of positives to take.”
Gray was then asked what the key to stopping City was,
Demarai Gray said: “Sticking to the game plan. You have to approach games a bit differently, especially when you come to the Etihad, if we are at home, we can give anyone a challenge, but coming here it’s difficult so sticking to the gameplan was key and we did that.”
After digging deep and refusing to crumble after falling behind, the Blues were in need of a spark of inspiration – and Gray provided it with a sensational equaliser. It was Everton’s only shot on target. Rodri played a loose pass to Idrissa Gueye, who fed Gray down the left. The winger initially slipped but showed great resourcefulness to regain balance, cut inside and let fly with a curled finish that flew into the top corner of Ederson’s net. The former Leicester City man had initially waited for team-mate Mykolenko to make the overlap before opting to cut inside and let fly.
Demarai Gray said: “You look up, and there’s a lot of blue shirts and you are just like…I don’t know what I’m going to do here but there are important moments in the game. We focused on the transitions and where we could hurt them. Me personally I am just always confident in the final third and trying to create a yard. Myko helped me a lot by making a run and creating a bit more time for me… and I slipped, so… eer yeah, it worked out well for me and I was happy to see it go in the top corner.”
