Well, it was another hard-fought Merseyside derby today, with ref Phil Dowd handing out 12 cards, including a second yellow for Stephen Gerrard and a red to Everton’s Andy van der Meyde for dangerous play. A disappointing day for Everton, playing up a man for almost an hour, but they never got anything going. The day started with disappointment (and a growing sense of doom) for me when I heard Mikel Arteta would not play due to injury.
Everton would have been happy with the first half, but then Phil Neville opened the scoring for Liverpool in first half injury time. Defending a corner at the near post, Neville started moving out to challenge but then moved back toward goal to follow the flight of the ball, trying to prevent it going past the front of goal. Unfortunately for Everton, his header went right in the net.
Everton started the second half with more weak defending - Gary Naysmith playing way too wide and allowing Luis Garcia lots of space; keeper Richard Wright came out to challenge when he should have stayed home and Garcia lobbed it in.
Tim Cahill made it interesting with his patented late-arrival header in the 61st minute, but Everton couldn’t find anything else.
Weak defending featured in Liverpool’s third goal, with Tony Hibbert giving Harry Kewell lots of space and time to blast another one by Wright.
The sad fact is that an Arteta-less Everton side look like they’re playing a man down already.
Crouch had, I think, a bit of a touch on one of Liverpool’s goals, but he didn’t look very special out there today. When he had any possession, he looked awful. Putting aside some James Beattie bias, I think I’d be taking Dean Ashton to Germany over Crouchie.
Mike Campbell
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