Everton 1-2 Liverpool (Beto 54′ | Salah 29′, Van Dijk 90’+10)
HILL DICKINSON STADIUM — They filled the Hill Dickinson Stadium with hope that this new place might mark the start of a new future too. European football was on the agenda; it still might be. More immediately, they aimed to set the tone against the neighbours.
Everton were the better team for all of the first half and some of the second; that doesn’t matter at all now. There have been too many sickening late moments for this fanbase in this fixture. As the Liverpool end sang and danced for 15 minutes after full-time, you added this one to the list.
Virgil van Dijk scores in the 100th minute!
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) April 19, 2026pic.twitter.com/akencyyjoX
Until Virgil van Dijk’s cruel late blow, this was an afternoon to conclude that there is little to separate Liverpool and Everton for quality and endeavour.
Beto was the goalscorer, a striker transformed and the perfect leader of an attack designed by David Moyes. He occupied both Van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate, won headers, pressed from the front, laid the ball off to teammates and scored Everton’s equaliser.
Injured after colliding heads with Konate, Beto was given a standing ovation and had his name chanted as a player who exemplifies everything good about this team: industry, self-improvement, squeezing the most out of his strengths and an ability to shut out the mistakes. His is a genuinely heartwarming tale.
But there are psychological headaches and hangovers that exist in this fixture and punish those who lack courage. Everton were guilty of sitting on a draw in the game’s final throes, 11 added minutes allowing Liverpool to accrue a little momentum.
The European dream can still happen. Everton can still be great under Moyes ahead of schedule. But this one will hurt for a while.
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Roughly 60 seconds before Mohamed Salah opened the scoring, the stadium announcer lauded Iliman Ndiaye as the first Merseyside derby goalscorer in this new Everton home, etching his name in history. Salah did not get the same treatment, unsurprisingly.
He will not care. Liverpool’s wavering form and Champions League exit, combined with questions over Arne Slot’s future, have rendered Salah’s farewell tour a little unhelpful. The only way for him to flip that narrative is to contribute in the final third. Remarkably this was only Salah’s second league goal away from Anfield since October.
Thanks to the events of the 100th minute, you suspect that Salah will always remember this one. Liverpool have a grip on a Champions League place again and the Egyptian is theirs for another five months at least.
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