Liverpool 2-0 Everton (Salah 36′, Gakpo 48′)
ANFIELD — Liverpool’s season, at long last, has lift off.
Mohamed Salah is back among the goals, Trent Alexander-Arnold looked back to his buccaneering best, Cody Gakpo got off the mark at last and Diogo Jota made his long-awaited return from injury.
It was the perfect night for Liverpool, with a 2-0 scoreline that actually flattered Everton bringing the Toffees crashing down to earth. It is not unreasonable to say that the manner of victory and the rejuvenating effect it could have on Jurgen Klopp’s beleaguered team, is something nobody saw coming. Klopp’s chest-beating post-game celebration had that bit more meaning.
As supporters made their way into the stadium, the songs coming out of the local pubs harked back to headier Anfield days, with the loudest ballad from one being a vibrant Divock Orgi number to the tune of Whigfield’s 90’s one-hit wonder Saturday Night.
Without the Everton slayer in tow, Liverpool fans, normally bursting through the Shankly Gates whenever their Stanley Park neighbours are in town, given their incredible record against the Toffees, were worried.
Liverpool came into the match with one goal and one point from four league matches in 2023 – the worst record in the top flight this year.
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Going further back, their top goalscorer in league games since the World Cup break was a Leicester City defender. Up against the man who ended Liverpool’s 68-game unbeaten home league run in January 2021 by masterminding a Burnley win, one week on from beating table toppers Arsenal in Sean Dyche’s first game, home supporters had every right to start the encounter peeking through gaps in their fingers.
As expected, the hosts, with Jordan Henderson and Fabinho, two experienced heads who have looked a shadow of their former selves this season, back in the side, were sluggish, unable to muster much in the way of an attack in the early stages.
Three of Everton’s previous five league goals had come from corners before their hop, skip and buoyant jump across to Anfield, and James Tarkowski, scorer of the winner against Arsenal, thought he had headed Everton into a lead everyone foresaw in this season of Liverpool woe, but his 35th-minute effort hit the post.
Sixteen seconds later and Liverpool had reinvented themselves with a blistering counter to remind fans that these same players who went within a whisker of an unprecedented treble last term are still capable of awe-inspiring things.
The much-maligned, outside of Merseyside at least, Darwin Nunez carried the attack to Everton, racing down the left before clipping a fine cross into the middle, which Salah prodded home, aided by some bizarre goalkeeping from Jordan Pickford, who came running from his line like a FIFA-game glitch.
The goal ensured Salah became the 13th player to be involved in 100 Premier League goals at a single stadium – 71 goals, 29 assists at Anfield. He has done so in 104 appearances, with only Alan Shearer, 74 at Ewood Park, and Thierry Henry, 92 at Highbury, doing so in fewer.
However, this meant more than a stat that will quickly be forgotten. Salah needed that goal. He may be Liverpool’s top goalscorer this season, but eight league strikes, after the club broke the bank to keep him, is a paltry return, by his own astronomical standards.
Cody Gakpo slots home his FIRST Liverpool goal!
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) February 13, 2023pic.twitter.com/PeDgGWDXTh
Gakpo has had to wait for his moment too, joining Liverpool at the worst possible time, mid-slump. But good things come to those who wait, and eventually Alexander-Arnold was going to find his range, squaring for Gakpo to tap in via a slight deflection off Vitaliy Mykolenko. The dubious goals panel may deny the right-back a second league assist of a below par season but it was like the Alexander-Arnold of old.
Everton had been here before. In-form teams in blue had come to Anfield with regularity, promising to earn the Toffees a first league win on enemy soil, other than a 2-0 success during Covid times in front of an empty stadium, since 1999.
But rarely had a Liverpool team been so primed for the taking than this. The blues did not muster a meaningful effort at goal after Tarkowski’s header, never troubling Alisson once in the home goal.
Liverpool could and should have made it three, but two goals still felt like a thrashing, given their recent travails.
The honeymoon period was a very short one indeed for Dyche. Liverpool supporters, however, may well enjoy an Indian summer yet this season.
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