Football News: Liverpool v Everton - A Liverpool Perspective

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Liverpool v Everton A Liverpool Perspective

That kind of result had been coming for a while. So often Liverpool had been wasteful in front of goal, missing chance after chance and leading to scorelines that made it look like the games were closer than they were. Finally the shots were being converted into the goals they should have led to, it is just unfortunate for Everton that they were the team that faced Liverpool in this game.

I have to admit that I was surprised by the team choices Klopp made, but he had needed to make changes as the team were struggling to perform. Salah is still nursing an ankle knock and the team were labouring to results. Without Fabinho to anchor the midfield, Klopp decided to go back to the system he had used at times last season, with 2 midfielders deeper, rather than 1, to add protection.

It worked brilliantly, Everton never got to grips with it and the Reds were clearly up for it, after years of Everton physically bullying Liverpool in the Derbies, this time LFC bullied Everton. Normally we see Everton kick Liverpool to try and even it up and it has worked, the Liverpool players lose their composure and get dragged down by it, making the games more difficult contests than they should be. This time it was Everton who went to pieces under a physical challenge. They were clearly not expecting it and took too long to recover from the shock.

To be fair, their players were not helped by the fact their manager is an idiot who made a mess of the game tactically. Even when he made a change from a back 5 to a back 4, he stupidly took off Sidibe rather than Mina and Keane, who were both abysmal. Keane, in particular, was incredibly bad. In fact there was one point it looked for a second like the ref was considering sending him off and I was praying he would not do so as it would have helped them out. He is a liability.

The fears before the game that so many people had of it being disrespectful to put out that team were completely dispelled almost immediately. I really do not get why people had thought that anyway, without Fabinho the team had to be altered and Everton have a clear Achilles' heel in central defence with two tug boats in there. Putting in Origi, who tends to do well in the big games, made sense with his pace and strength.

Putting in Shaqiri with his raw strength and ability to pick a pass also made a lot of sense, with Salah struggling with an ankle knock. The one that most people seemed to struggle with was Lallana, as it seemed that Oxlade-Chamberlain was the one people were hoping for there. I can see both sides, but Oxlade-Chamberlain had been out a long time, then come back and played a lot of minutes, he needed a break. Lallana needed minutes plus this was his boyhood club and he could be guaranteed to put in effort any match but against Everton he was likely to have that little bit more of an edge than usual.

With Liverpool players matching the desire and fight of Everton, their greater skill, confidence and better tactical plan told. While Everton put up a fight, they were not being guided well and were wide open to being beaten by a simple ploy of drawing them in and then dropping the ball in behind their cumbersome centre-halves. It was far too easy and it is amazing that Silva could not figure out what to do about it.

In the second half, Klopp changed tack and just concentrated on seeing out the game. Everton seemed to run out of ideas, while Liverpool just did enough to kill the game off. This was the game that finally killed any hope of Marco Silva finding a way to turn things around, that was the main takeaway from that game. As for Liverpool it showed little, other than that they are good enough to keep winning and keep the pressure on the rest but there is still a long way to go in the season and a lot of football to be played. Nothing is won in December. Well other than the Club World Cup!

Written by Tris Burke December 05 2019 12:48:33