Everton 1 Liverpool 4 (Gray 38′; Henderson 9′, Salah 19′, 64′, 79′)
GOODISON PARK — They chanted Rafa Benitez’s name long and loud into the night air. The voices, however, were from men in red shirts.
It says something that Liverpool’s swaggering victory in the Merseyside derby, fashioned by some fabulous work from Jordan Henderson and Mohamed Salah was quite as bad as most Everton fans had predicted. Latvia’s women conceding 20 goals to England might not have been the deepest humiliation inflicted on a football team this week.
The scale of the defeat might be enough to see the end of Benitez’s short, disastrous time on the other side of Stanley Park. No manager can long survive being mocked in his own stadium or chants of “sack the board” which greeted the final whistle.
To Farhad Moshiri, Everton’s owner, appointing Benitez, a man who had won a European Cup to succeed another European Cup winner in Carlo Ancelotti might have appeared a logical move.
Alan Sugar, another businessman who thought managers were mere executives, did not understand how appointing George Graham, a man who had won two titles at Arsenal, to the dug-out at White Hart Lane might carry baggage.
Neither man quite understood the undercurrents of football. Appointing Benitez was like the Labour Party selecting David Cameron as its leader on the basis that “he’s a politician who knows how to win elections” without realising there might be other things about him that could cause problems.
The only way for Benitez to have survived was to have held Everton in the top half of the table until his past ceased to be an issue. After six defeats in seven, the past is alive and kicking down the door to his office.
The last time Jürgen Klopp came to Goodison Park in October 2020, he was sarcastically applauded off by a ball boy after a match in which Virgil van Dijk, perhaps the best centre-half in the world, would be ruled out for the rest of the season. Realistically, Liverpool’s title defence ended there. This was an opportunity for a pulverising revenge, which they took.
After 20 minutes they were two up but it might have been many more. Everton’s supporters had been dreading this fixture much as a Victorian heroine, tied to a railway line, might dread the sound of an onrushing train. Their club had not beaten anyone outside the relegation zone since the opening day of the season, while Liverpool’s form had been electric.
From the opening seconds when a mix-up between Jordan Pickford and his captain, Seamus Coleman, conceded a corner which Joel Matip should have scored from with a free header, Everton played like a team in trance, a team whose defeat had been foretold.
Matip clutched his head in his hands, although if the defender imagined he had squandered the night’s outstanding chance he was mistaken. There would be very many more very quickly.
They had barely survived the sight of Salah rushing to meet Diogo Jota’s cross, which ought to have finished in the back of the net but which ended up in the Gwladys Stand when Pickford prevented a low shot from Sadio Mané from squirming under his body.
Inevitability cannot long be delayed and it arrived after 10 minutes. After fine work from Mané and Andy Robertson, the ball came to Henderson on the edge of the area. The Liverpool captain met it with the instep of his left foot and Pickford, who like Henderson learnt his football on Wearside, had no answer to it.
During an excruciating first half, Pickford, one of the very few members of Benitez’s side who would merit consideration for Klopp’s was to make several fine saves.
There is a limit to how long any side can rely on salvage operations from their goalkeeper, especially with Salah bearing down on goal and after 20 minutes time was up.
The goal was made by Henderson’s exquisite pass from inside his own half. There were two blue shirts theoretically covering but they came nowhere near the Egyptian, who cut in from the left and placed the ball past Pickford with geometric precision.
Just as it seemed they might fall apart, Everton rallied. A lovely pass from Richarlison set Demarai Gray though on goal and when he slipped his shot through Alisson Becker’s legs, Everton briefly had some straws to cling to.
However, once Coleman failed to control the ball in front of Salah and chased after him like an Irish cob pursuing a thoroughbred, those straws snapped. There were walk-outs and there was booing and when Jota finished with the kind of precision that has become Liverpool’s trademark, the stands began to empty.
Everton, beaten, outplayed and close to disintegration, looked what Benitez had called them when he was preparing to take Liverpool to another Champions League final in 2007. They looked like a small club.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3xLrX4b
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