Everton leave the Reds feeling the Title Blues
Everton 2 Liverpool 0, 24th April 2024
EVERTON 2 (Branthwaite 27, Calvert-Lewin 58)
LIVERPOOL 0
Well it’s not mathematically over or impossible to win the Premier League title following this evening’s limp and insipid defeat across Stanley Park at their nearest and dearest Liverpudlian neighbours, but Jürgen Klopp’s strongest possible starting XI (save yet another injury for Diogo Jota) were bullied and badly beaten for 35 first half minutes before surrendering an inexplicable gift of a second goal when fully on top a quarter of an hour inside the second half and with half an hour to now score three goals to save their title ambitions chances came and went but in all honesty Jordan Pickford was rarely threatened in the Everton goal and aside from Luis Díaz rapping Pickford’s far post on 69 minutes, Liverpool limped to an almost certain season ending defeat. An ugly truth is that the Colombian never stopped running or trying and didn’t deserve to taste defeat in a Merseyside Derby but the team around him never started and after Díaz was unluckily denied by Everton’s goal frame, the Reds never looked like scoring one let alone three season saving goals.
The better team, by far, deserved their 3 Premier League points this evening and if that isn’t difficult enough to take, this is a truly dreadful Everton team who will now retain their Premier League status after coming perilously close yet again to falling through the trapdoor into The Championship. Pickford was barely troubled in their goal, captain James Tarkowski magnificent in marshalling a largely at ease defence in front of Pickford, James Garner and Idrissa Gueye dominated the midfield the battle and Dominic Calvert-Lewin was made to look like prime Dixie Dean!
Ugly truths were everywhere you dared look at Goodison Park this evening:
Ibrahima Konaté lost his personal battle time and again with Calvert-Lewin, Curtis Jones simply didn’t figure at all, Alexis Mac Allister tried but was outgunned by James Garner and Idrissa Gueye in midfield, Dominik Dominik Szoboszlai anonymous for large parts of the game, Darwin Núñez simply had to score with the Reds first shot on goal on 34 minutes and (deep breath everyone) Mo Salah, as I’ve written on far too many occasions both this season and last, appears as disinterested and unhappy as Sadio Mané did in his final season for Liverpool and captain Virgil van Dijk lost his cool and way before his scathing post-match comments that spoke volumes, as well as for every Liverpool Red the world over.
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Asked whether his team were still in the title race in his immediate post-match interview, Virgil van Dijk responded with a damning “If we play like today we have no chance to consider ourselves in the title race” and if that wasn’t scathing enough the captain continued with an incredibly downbeat “we can’t let the season end in this way” and even more damning “everyone has to look in the mirror at their own performance and whether they want to win the title”.
Everton deserved their victory thoroughly and absolutely and Liverpool left Goodison Park beaten, broken, bullied and almost certainly out of the race for the Premier League title.
Race for the Title
Arsenal P 34 W 24 D 5 L 5 GD 56 Points 77
LIVERPOOL P 34 W 22 D 8 L 4 GD 41 Points 74
Manchester City P 32 W 22 D 7 L 3 GD 44 Points 73
Following last evening’s emphatic 5–0 demolition of a woeful and almost comical Chelsea, Arsenal now hold both a 3 point lead at the top of the Premier League as well as improving their goal difference to a whopping +15 over the Reds which in effect gives the Londoners an extra point should they need it. Over to Manchester City tomorrow who will leapfrog the Reds with a draw at Brighton on goal difference and a win takes them to within a point of the “Gunners” of Arsenal with a game in hand too.
Liverpool had 5 Cup Finals to win and they’ve lost the first one.
The 3 horse race for the Premier League title appears to be down to 2.
Time will tell.
It always does.
A final word from The Boss
“No good thoughts at all. Very disappointed, frustrated obviously. I had now obviously a few interviews and I would say you can sum up: it was not good enough. We played the game, or let it happen, the game Everton wanted. They scored two goals from set-pieces. The first one we defended somehow three times but in the end we put it on a plate and I don’t think Branthwaite scored it, he didn’t even hit the ball properly but the ball rolls over the line. After that we had our best period, we really put them under pressure, we created big chances and didn’t score. Going like that in half-time, each situation we missed gave Everton kind of momentum even more and took away from us. We never had it, but it didn’t help”.
“And then second half, it was as well not good enough, without the real pressure phase I would say we had to the end of the first half. Then you concede the second goal. I think everybody who is with Everton saw that goal already 20 times or something like that, that’s their routine. Everybody knows they put the ball there. In the end, the player is anyway completely free. I didn’t see it back but I’m pretty sure we could have defended that better. It’s 2–0, atmosphere here, we played like we played, obviously it was not the most inspired performance of all time”.
“I really feel for the people, I’m really sorry for that obviously. People told me so often about my great record [in derbies], before the derby especially you hear, ‘But you never win here’. But we never lost and that feels really different. I really apologise for that, it was unnecessary but it happened. We cannot change it anymore. We have to recover because the quickest of all turnarounds is waiting for us. You can imagine that will be now a challenge obviously mentally and physically. Physically, it was clear. If you win a game then the mental turnaround is obviously not a massive problem, but we have now both things to do. And probably West Ham is waiting and rubbing their hands and hoping that we come there on one leg. But I will try absolutely everything to make sure we are much more ourselves than we were tonight”.
Great article! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the final score. Can Dyke was absolutely right, that they can’t play like this and hope to win the title. It’s never over until it’s over though! I always love the title race.