Saturday saw the most heated of the Premiership derby’s kick off: the battle of Merseyside. It was a game promising plenty of goals as the Premier League’s top scoring club, faced the premier league’s top scoring striker.
The goal guaranteed game certainly delivered as it only took 7 minutes for Sadio Mané to pull out a great piece of individual skill, skipping his way through Everton’s defence to put Liverpool one goal ahead. After the goal, it was all Liverpool and the ground was full of the constant roar of the red’s fans. But Anfield was shortly silenced as some sloppy defending from a corner saw Matthew Pennington place the ball in the back of the net. What a moment for the lad; first game, first derby and first goal scored right in front of the Kop.
It didn’t take long for Liverpool to hit back. Coutinho embarrassed Pennington, sending the defender completely the wrong way, putting it on his favoured right foot and curled it into the top right hand corner. What a devastating moment for Pennington having just got his team back into the game.
In the second half, Sadio Mané suffered an awkward injury that forced him to be replaced by Divock Origi. 2-1 down, it looked like Everton weren’t going to get anything back and a third goal from substitute Divock Origi confirmed that. He found an easy finish which had Everton fans and pundits questioning the goalkeeper’s early approach towards Origi. Leaving his line early offered no resistance to the shot that flew down the centre of the net.
The third goal pretty much summed up Everton’s game and blame is easy to hand out. Lukaku failed to make any impact at all and Everton born midfielder, Ross Barkley, who you’d have thought would’ve taken the opportunity to make a point after being left out of the England squad during the international break, had an awful game and was lucky not to receive a red card.
The win means Liverpool are now unbeaten in the last 13 Merseyside derby’s & manager Jurgen Klopp makes history as the first Liverpool manager to win his first three league clashes against their city rivals. Liverpool now sit in 3rd position in the table, one point above Manchester City who gained one point over the weekend after their 2-2 draw with Arsenal.
Our boohooMAN of the match goes to Coutinho. Despite being substituted in the last 15 minutes of the game, the Brazilian looked as clinical as ever and back on form.
