Match Thread Liverpool v Everton - Preview, Report and MotM Poll

Everton Man of the Match

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Toffeelover said:
There is a very good full page article in the Sunday Times sport pages praising our players by, yes Graeme Souness!!!!!!!!!

Sorry do not know how to do a link.
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...layers-realise-how-big-this-game-is-fhnntvspp

‘Do foreign players realise how big this game is?’
Graeme Souness

When Everton face Liverpool at Anfield today, fans don’t care about league positions — it’s only the result that matters
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Everton should finish seventh this season and maybe higher if the big boys slip up, provided they are able to keep their main players fit. To do so, they need to start taking more points from the top six sides, starting today at Anfield. They haven’t won a derby there since 1999, while their most recent win against Liverpool at Goodison was eight years ago.

That’s a woeful record. Perhaps the influx of foreign players has diluted the derby’s importance. I don’t want to generalise, but maybe some people just don’t get what it means to the fans. Going back to my day, and beyond, it didn’t matter if one club was near the top of the league and the other towards the bottom, you could never pick a winner. We would beat up Everton occasionally, but they were usually close affairs.

For example, I scored the winner in a League Cup final replay at Maine Road in 1984, but we should have lost the first match at Wembley. We always knew it would be a fight against Everton, even when we were the dominant team.

The build-up would start the minute you finished your game the previous weekend and Scousers such as Jimmy Case, Sammy Lee, Dave Johnson and especially Phil Thompson in our dressing-room would make everybody aware of what it meant. Not that we needed reminding. Once you played in one, you got the message.

At Anfield, a fifth or sixth of the Kop was blue. You would see a family going to the game, the dad and one son would be red; the mum and other son would be blue. I’m not sure if that still exists, but it did in those days.

It was called the friendly derby, but it wasn’t friendly on the pitch. It didn’t have the ugly, unacceptable aspect of the Glasgow derby, but you still couldn’t get away from it. If you went for a haircut or were in a restaurant someone would say: “Tell us we’re going to win at the weekend.” That sort of chat. It was intense.

Everton have shown signs recently that they can finish just outside the top six this season, which is where they should be. You could make a comparison with Tottenham emerging from Arsenal’s shadow. They have to hope that a special player in the mould of Harry Kane comes through or that Farhad Moshiri, the owner, has even deeper pockets.

In goal, Jordan Pickford takes responsibility and has grown in confidence from a good World Cup. Idrissa Gueye puts everybody under pressure in possession in midfield and beside him Andre Gomes, who is on loan at Goodison Park from Barcelona, is a class act. If he continues his form, Everton will face some serious competition to sign him from other Premier League teams. They should do a permanent deal sooner rather than later, if they can. Gomes has creativity, can drop a shoulder and take people on, moves the ball quickly at the right time and doesn’t get caught out by the intensity of the game .

The same applies to Richarlison, who is only a baby at 21. He needs to prove himself over a season because he faded after Christmas at Watford last season, but he’s a handful and another one that Everton will find difficult to hold onto if he progresses because his type of player is hard to find.

He stretches the game with his pace, which gives Gylfi Sigurdsson more room to play in between the opposition’s midfield and back four. Richarlison’s threat moves the opposing back four towards their own goal and opens up space for Sigurdsson in that No 10 role. The Iceland international is another class act, but to get the best out of him he needs to be in a team that has most of the ball. His strength isn’t chasing round, putting the ball under pressure and getting it back for you.

Seamus Coleman is an old-fashioned full-back who was a real bargain for the £60,000 Everton paid Sligo Rovers for him in 2009. They missed his enthusiasm and presence when he was injured. He can look back on his early years and the rare route he has taken to the Premier League and really appreciate where he finds himself today. Coleman also appears to be a one-club man who wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave if one of the big guys came calling.

Lucas Digne, at left-back, has quickly picked up the pace of the Premier League, but I’m not so sure about Everton’s wingers. Theo Walcott is 29 now, yet I called him “young Theo” on Sky the other week and that is because he has never fulfilled his promise. On the left flank, I believe Bernard might be too lightweight for our game.
My main worry for Everton will be how whoever Marco Silva, the manager, selects from Michael Keane, Yerry Mina and Kurt Zouma as his centre-backs cope with the movement of Liverpool’s front three. They are not alone in finding that a problem, but it’s where Liverpool will aim to get joy.

For Jurgen Klopp, the concern will be that he spent £90m on Naby Keita and Fabinho during the summer in an attempt to improve his midfield, and also failed to sign Nabil Fekir from Lyons for more than £50m, but so far that hasn’t happened. It was emphasised again in Wednesday’s 2-1 defeat at Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League that three workaholics in midfield — Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Georginio Wijnaldum — is simply not enough at the highest level.
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ON TV TODAY
Liverpool v Everton
Sky Sports Main Event, 4.15pm
 

Toffeelover said:
There is a very good full page article in the Sunday Times sport pages praising our players by, yes Graeme Souness!!!!!!!!!

Sorry do not know how to do a link.
Click to expand...

If its the one I just read, he sold Gomes and Richarldson to a "big" club, told us we will finish 7th, (maybe 6th if a big club slipped up), "which is where they should be", and Silva has a problem picking centre halves to cope with Liverpools front 3.
 
TGW89 said:
ooooh God. Every year it's the same "we're gonna win" blah blah blah.

Last time I remember such rampant optimism was in January 2014, just under two months after getting 4 points from OT and the Emirates. In doing so we buried a 21-year hoodoo at Old Trafford and were high on the fumes of it way longer than we should have been.

So the 222nd derby kicks off and I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. 20 minutes later, my face is like Bart and Lisa's when Marge tells them they're going to the Highway Nine Bird Sanctuary instead of Itchy and Scratchy land.

I'm not saying we can't pull it off, but that sort of rhetoric isn't helping our image. I mean we go on and on about 1999. For us it was (F.A Cup win aside) our greatest achievement of modern times. Finishing fourth with a rubbish team was pretty good.

Ask any RS when their team last won at Goodison, they'd be like "we can't remember, for us, it was just Tuesday"...

Look. Why can't we just treat it like any other game and stop going on and bloody on about records etc.
Click to expand...

Don’t get posts like this or this attitude of trying to pretend it doesn’t matter.

When it comes to football I live by two very simple principles.... I ‘kin love Everton and I hate Liverpool. This fixture means a lot.
 
roydo said:
If its the one I just read, he sold Gomes and Richarldson to a "big" club, told us we will finish 7th, (maybe 6th if a big club slipped up), "which is where they should be", and Silva has a problem picking centre halves to cope with Liverpools front 3.
Click to expand...

But he was praising the players and really saying it was down to ours to start taking points from the teams above and suggesting today.
 

People are going on about our record at Anfield, but it's our home record that bothers me. We've drawn there about ten times since Kev's winner and
away draws are OK. They must hate them.
I've been pretty confident about this for a few weeks, but not so much after the Cardiff match. I checked the odds today and Everton are in to 13 to 2, so there's been money for us and Liverpool have blown out a bit. I've had a bet and I just hope we have one of those days when the new boys are all at their best.
 
Toffeelover said:
But he was praising the players and really saying it was down to ours to start taking points from the teams above and suggesting today.
Click to expand...

Walcott. Never fulfilled his promise
Bernard. Too lightweight
Richarldson. Needs to prove it over a season cos he faded at Watford
Siggy. Needs to be in a team with most of the ball
Gomes. Need to sign him before a big club does.

Nice about Gana, Pickford and Digna though.
 

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