Everton 1-2 Liverpool: Premier League Match Report

Everton 1-2 Liverpool, and the derby followed the same script as the reverse fixture. Liverpool led 1-0 at half-time and the second half was shared 1-1, so the visitors carried a one-goal advantage from the interval to the finish. When these clubs met at Anfield in September it also ended 2-1 to Liverpool.

The table had them five points apart and pulling in different directions. Liverpool went in fifth on 52 points from 32 matches with a goal difference of +10, three behind Aston Villa in fourth and needing everything they could take from the run-in. Everton were tenth on 47 with +2, closer to the top six than a club in their recent history usually gets in April, but with nothing concrete to chase.

Everton had the better recent record of the two. Three wins in five, including 3-2 at Newcastle and 3-0 at home to Chelsea, with a 2-2 at Brentford and a 0-2 at Arsenal. Liverpool's five contained a 5-2 win over West Ham and a 2-0 against Fulham but also a 1-2 at Wolverhampton and a 1-2 at Brighton — two defeats to teams below them in a period when they could afford neither.

Liverpool reached 55 points and +11, drawing level with the side that had begun the round in fourth and cutting the top-four question down to a single win with six rounds remaining, and doing it in the fixture where dropped points would have been hardest to explain. Winning a derby away from home while chasing a European place is worth the same three points as any other win and considerably more in a season where the margin had been their inconsistency.

Everton stayed on 47 with the difference falling to +1. They had lost a derby by a goal, which is the ordinary outcome of this fixture, and remained tenth without any real prospect of moving. Five points had separated them; eight did by full time, which is roughly the honest distance between a side chasing qualification and a side who had already got more from the season than the table demanded.

Our pre-match call was Liverpool Win at 1.72. It came in, and the reasoning held for the right reasons: Liverpool had the sharper incentive, the better squad and a recent record against Everton that pointed one way. What the confidence rating did not properly account for was the pair of 1-2 defeats to Wolverhampton and Brighton in the same month — a team losing by a goal to lower-half opposition can lose by a goal in a derby just as easily. The one-goal margin here was the same margin that had cost them twice. It went the right way this time. Verdict: won