Second placed Liverpool traveled to Goodison Park today to take on city-rivals Everton in the 221st edition of the Merseyside Derby. A win would have seen Brendan Rodgers’ men summit the Premier League table table but the Toffees were unbeaten at home this season.
As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the game. E-mail steven@thescore.ie, tweet @thescore_ie, post a message to our Facebook wall, or leave a comment below.
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Everton 3-3 Liverpool
Hello and welcome to our coverage of the first Merseyside derby of the 2013/14 season. Best to dive straight in and give you the teams with the big news being Daniel Sturridge hasn’t recovered from a dead leg and so takes a place amongst the Liverpool substitutes.
Everton: Howard, Coleman, Jagielka, Distin, Baines, McCarthy, Barry; Mirallas, Barkley, Piennar, Lukaku. Subs: Robles, Heitinga, Jelavic, Deulofeu, Naismith, Osman, Stones
And the visitors
Liverpool: Mignolet, Johnson, Flanagan, Agger, Skrtel, Lucas, Gerrard, Allen, Henderson, Coutinho, Suarez. Subs: Jones, Toure, Alberto, Moses, Sturridge, Sakho, Sterling
With the form Suarez is in, the loss of Sturridge may not hurt Liverpool as much as it would have earlier this season but they’ll still have to break down an Everton defence that have gone five hours and 30 minutes with conceding the Premier League.
As always, we’d love to hear your predictions and opinions. Let us know in the comments below how you think this game will go.
While a win for Liverpool will put them top of the league, three points for Everton will send them into the top four, a fine achievement for Roberto Martinez who is also celebrating a personal milestone today with the birth of a daughter.
And it’s game on with Everton kicking off after the two managers shared a joke or two on the sidelines.
The first half chance of the game falls to the home side but Pienaar’s little dink pass is just too strong for Barkley and Simon Mignolet comfortably shepherds it out of play. Very early stages of course but Everton have dominated possession in the first three minutes.
GOAL – Coutinho, 5mins
And after all that Liverpool score from the game’s first corner. A wonderful ball in by Gerrard is flicked on by Suarez and it’s Coutinho who scores after being left in acres of space by the Everton defence.
GOAL – Mirallas, 8mins
More suspect defending, this time from the visitors. A hopeful ball in from Baines isn’t dealt with by the Liverpool defence and Kevin Mirallas is the first to react to fire home from close range.
Game on.
Two goals from two badly defended set pieces in the space of three minutes and this one is shaping up to be a classic… as long as you don’t like competent defending.
Another chance for Everton and Pienaar sets Lukaku away but the striker meets the ball at the same time as Mignolet and the Liverpool keeper does really well not to give away a penalty.
The home side will be kicking themselves they defended that Liverpool corner so badly earlier as they’re well on top here.
Ross Barkley is well up for this derby, dazzling Jon Flanagan with riverdance legs but his mazy run is stopped in its tracks by a no-nonsense challenge from Lucas.
GOAL – Suarez, 19mins
One suspects the first team to defend a set-piece properly will be declared the winner of this. Suarez bangs home a free kick from fully 30 yards out and there are lots of question marks over the positioning of the Everton wall.
Gareth Barry needs to hang his head in shame too, he needlessly clipped Suarez to give away the free kick in the first place.
I should say, Suarez did brilliantly to curl that free kick home but he was helped by the Everton wall.
Everton defend a set-piece without conceding a goal. Small victory for the home side there.
Everything good Everton do seem to be at the expense of Flanagan. Kevin Mirallas’ shot going just wide after he beat the Liverpool defender.
Ross Barkley picks up the first booking of the game for doing an Ashley Young and he can have no complaints as it was such an obvious dive Phil Dowd had no choice but to flash the yellow card.
Such a pity Barkely felt the need do that, he’s been the best Everton player so far today.
Wow, Kevin Mirallas surely should be walking down the tunnel after a reckless high challenge on Luis Suarez.
There’s some fistycuffs between the Liverpool physio and Gareth Barry afterwards. I assume it’s just that Barry is drawn to physios he’s spent so much time around them in his career. Here they are exchanging words:
YouTube: Eden Hazard
After a massive delay, Dowd shows Mirallas a yellow but he’s very lucky to be still on the pitch after a kung fu tackle.
Three minutes to go to half time and there’s a bit of niggle in the game now with both sets of players feeling hard done by and getting on Phil Dowd’s back at every opportunity.
Here’s what Suarez’s leg looks like after the Mirallas challenge. It really should have been a red card:
Image: Ashley Rose
There’s the half-time whistle and Everton really will be kicking themselves over their set-piece defending in the early stages of this game as, for most of the first half, they were the better side.
The game was being played at 90 miles an hour until Mirallas’ shocker of challenge on Suarez which has sucked the life out of it somewhat.
Time for some half-time oranges and then back for the second half.
The second half is underway and Suarez is still hobbling from that high challenge in the first half.
With Sturridge on the bench because of a dead leg, Liverpool can ill-afford to lose the influential Uruguayan.
This is getting very tasty now. Suarez flew in for a challenge on Mirallas and, despite winning the ball, the Goodison crowd were screaming for a yellow.
Prediction: This game won’t end with 22 players.
Substitution for Everton with Baines going off and Gerard Deulofeu coming on.
Deulofeu with a chance to make his mark on this game straight away but the Spanish u21 hits his shot straight at Mignolet when anything either side would probably have scored.
Everton remain the better team but they still trail 2-1 and are at risk of losing at home for the first time this year.
Glen Johnson does really well to defend an Everton cross at the expense of a corner but the set-piece comes to nothing for the home side.
Down the other end, Joe Allen has one of the worst misses you’ll see this weekend.
With just the keeper to beat from 8 yards, the Liverpool midfielder doesn’t even hit the target.
A shocking miss.
And Allen follows up his stunning miss with a yellow card for a kick at Mirallas.
Another good save from Mignolet as he denies Lukaku again after making himself as big as possible as the Everton striker was through one-on-one again.
If Liverpool go on to claim all three points here, they can thank their Belgian shot stopper.
Lucas is the latest player to find his way into Phil Dowd’s notebook after he shoves Pienaar when there really was no need to commit the foul. The less said about Everton’s free kick routine though, the better.
Victor Moses replaces Joe Allen who, we can only assume, is being hauled aside following his failure to kill off this game.
Mignolet to the rescue of Liverpool again, this time making a comfortable save from a Lukaku half-chance.
If, like me, you have both players in your fantasy football team, you’ll have mixed feelings about their battle today.
GOAL – Lukaku, 72mins
Everton equalise after Mignolet can only parry Lukaku’s free kick. The loose ball is picked up by Mirallas and, when the ball is pulled back into the middle, Lukaku thunders a shot home from ten yards.
Can anyone find a winner now?
Lucas and Mirallas wrestling with each other, both on yellow cards. A dangerous game from both.
Everton had four on three there as they counter-attacked but, unbelievably, Lukaku managed to pick out a Liverpool player.
Down the other end, Suarez gets on the end of a Gerrard cross but Tim Howard and Tim Howard’s beard made a point blank save.
As Sturridge comes on for Liverpool (Lucas is off) Suarez is booked for the visitors.
GOAL – Lukaku, 82mins
Everton were piling on the pressure, creating chance after chance and Lukaku has his second of the game with a powerful header over Flanagan and it’s hard to argue that the home side don’t deserve this lead. The 20-year old out-muscled Flanagan in the air before burying his header.
The goal came after Mignolet had denied Deulofeu twice in the space of a minute.
In all the excitement of Everton taking the lead we missed an Everton substitution with Pienaar being replaced by John Stones.
The final change for the home side sees Mirallas taken off — should he still be on the pitch? — and replaced by Leon Osman.
GOAL – Daniel Sturridge, 88mins
Daniel Sturridge silences the Everton crowd with a perfectly placed header off the back of his head from a Gerrard cross.
This game will go down as a classic as long as you don’t mind the fact that neither side appear capable of defending a corner or free kick.
Victor Moses head over from four yards there. Definitely would have scored had Suarez’s pass come from a set-piece rather than play.
Two minute of injury time left, can anyone find a winner?
Tim Howard makes a fantastic save from Suarez but the bad news for Everton is that it results in a corner.
And Liverpool do score from the corner for Sturridge is one of three players clearly offside.
Peep, peep, peep.
The final whistle has gone and the 221st Merseyside derby finishes in a draw.
Everton will probably be kicking themselves as they were the better team for long stretches of the game but conceded three soft goals from set-pieces.
In fairness to Liverpool, they took their chances when they came and, as a neutral, the game had almost everything.
And that’s all she wrote from us. Thanks for joining us for today’s early kick off. Be sure to keep an eye on the site and @football_ie on Twitter for the rest of today’s football updates.
