Chaos Reigns in Final Goodison “Derby”
Everton 2 Liverpool 2, 12th February 2025
EVERTON 2 (Beto 11, Tarkowski 90+8)
LIVERPOOL 2 (Mac Allister 16, Salah 73)
On the shrill of referee Michael Oliver’s final whistle of the evening and after watching the post-match carnage unfold that was perfectly in keeping with the typically feisty and ugly derby that came before it, I noted a single word in my trusty journal, “sickening”, and then simply turned out all the lights and watched Robert Eggers Nosferatu for a second time. It seemed right, in the circumstances, as legends and myths would have you believe that you have to invite the vampire into your life and after this Hammer House of Horrors I clearly needed some more horror.
A sickening horror story doesn’t really cut it and no, I’m not talking about Robert Eggers latest twisted gothic tale. Yes referee Michael Oliver was beyond abysmal this evening as I continue with my recent trend of saying I rarely talk about referees whilst talking about referees. Oliver is a rare breed and one which I hold in a higher esteem than nearly all of his whistle happy colleagues, but this evening he was appalling and he’ll be up far later than I penning (whitewashing?) both his report and his actions on the shenanigans during the match itself and the ugly confrontations that followed it.
But however much we as Liverpool fans would like to lay the blame squarely at the feet of Oliver for his inept display that would be unfair and whilst I’m keenly aware that I may end up not writing about the football at all, well I think we’ve all let the vampire into our lives this evening and so fuck it, let’s travel that dark road of monochromatic shadows and see what’s lurking beneath this evening’s nightmare. An equalising goal in the 8th minute of 5 injury time minutes? Yes there’s reasons for that too, as there are presumably for the blatant push in the back on Ibrahima Konaté that should have been called as a foul but wasn’t, and then we have the oh so predictable ugly pitch invasion but who can blame the Blues fans for that? Have you seen the shit they have to watch week after week as they dance with the trapdoor of relegation into The Championship season in, season out? If I were to describe Everton as by far the better team this evening I would be both admitting to an ugly truth and verging on talking about the actual football this evening, and how Everton were far more physical, quicker to loose balls, determined, organised and with a gameplan to get the ball forward to Beto and with Abdoulaye Doucouré joining him as a somewhat second striker, they bullied and harried Ibrahima Konaté and Virgil van Dijk, never gave them any time or space on the ball to settle into the Reds usual rhythm of playing through midfield into attack and in the second half in particular, Everton were bossing the game entirely until Mo Salah’s seemingly decisive goal on 73 minutes.
But we seem to be talking football and this was a horror show after all, so let’s return to Abdoulaye Doucouré and his goading of the Liverpool fans in the Away End on the final whistle that rather raised the ire of Curtis Jones! It wasn’t quite on the Richter Scale of Gary Neville at Old Trafford all those years ago and young Curtis was barely out of nursery school! Now that my friends, was an ugly horror show. This evening boiled over into a full-on police and steward intervention that would eventually see both Doucouré and Jones each yellow carded for a second time and so sent off after the match had ended and if that wasn’t an ugly enough horror show for you, both Arne Slot and his assistant Sipke Hulshoff were shown straight red cards by referee Michael Oliver who clearly didn’t take kindly to Slot’s very firm handshake and his volley of words on the pitch post-match.
4 goals
4 yellow cards (though I was convinced there were more)
4 red cards
Such perfect symmetry for such an ugly and horrific spectacle.
But let’s, in closing, cast out the shadow of this evening’s vampire and address the cold, hard and ugly truth that Liverpool only created two worthy goal scoring chances in either half of the match and whilst they barely shaded the dominance of a stop/start first half, they were particularly poor and completely outplayed until Salah’s 73rd minute goal. Had Everton been leading with 20 minutes to go I wouldn’t have entertained a single word of protest. Yet they turned an ugly and underwhelming performance into a 2–1 lead 8 minutes into a scheduled 5 minutes of second half injury time and James Tarkowski smashed in a wonder goal from nowhere and I turned out the lights and watched a film about a blood sucking vampire. It seemed appropriate. As did captain Virgil van Dijk’s post-match comments of the referee “not having control of the game” and, endearing himself to Reds all over the world with “this is their (Everton’s) Cup Final”.
Good luck with the hate mail from the Blues big man!
I usually end my reports on the Mighty Reds with “Arne’s Afterword” and a couple of quotes taken direct from the official Liverpool website but as the boss was sent off and as is Premier League protocol in such circumstances, he’s not permitted to air his immediate post-match thoughts.
What an ugly horror show this all was.
Thanks for reading. I pen my thoughts on every Liverpool game and in recent seasons, with the addition of numerous pieces of retro writing on Reds games of the past, I’ve curated and created the following two self-published books:
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books too. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.
All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:
"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon
"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon
It's not unusual for this to happen in other sports. The harshest penalty is that the coach gets suspended for a period of time by the sanctioning body and/or fired by the management.