A derby without supporters seems a bit pointless, but there was at least some bad blood on Liverpool’s side as it was Everton who derailed their season by injuring Virgil van Dijk, while the Blues haven’t recorded a victory in this fixture for over a decade.
With little wiggle room due to their injury crisis, Jürgen Klopp kept with the same team that beat RB Leipzig in mid-week. They set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Carlo Ancelotti made three changes to the side that lost to Manchester City on Wednesday, swapping out Yerry Mina, Alex Iwobi and Gylfi Sigurdsson for Séamus Coleman, André Gomes and James Rodriguez as they moved to a 3-5-1-1 shape.
Everton took the lead just two minutes in. The ball was bouncing around in the air in midfield before falling to Rodriguez, who took it down and slid a pass between the centre-backs for Richarlison running in behind to finish.
Everton’s set-up was perfect for protecting their early lead. They didn’t simply sit back and defend early on – sometimes pressing but generally preferring a mid-block – however the back three ensured they always had men back. There were several times Liverpool won the ball back in situations where they would typically be able to catch out the opposition, yet they would just run into Everton defenders.
They got deeper and deeper as the match went on though, posing the same issues for Liverpool as so many other teams have this season. Forming a compact 5-3-2, they asked Liverpool to break them down.
In the first half, Liverpool tried to hit a few long balls in behind that came to nothing – the strong wind made it difficult for the defenders to read the flight of the ball, but the attackers faced the same problem, while the ball could often be carried much further, out of play. There were also the familiar crosses into a packed box.
Thankfully, this wasn’t the horror show that the Brighton match became. These strategies were largely ditched when it became clear they weren’t working, and Liverpool instead went to trying to work the ball into the box with neat passing combinations. They created several decent chances but were foiled by Everton’s tight defence.
It’s difficult to suggest much else Klopp could have done. He started with a creative midfield and it only got more so when Curtis Jones was replaced by Xherdan Shaqiri.
In the second half, Thiago Alcântara found himself dropping back alongside Georginio Wijnaldum, basically forming a double pivot despite sticking with the 4-3-3.
This made it easy for Liverpool to play the ball out from the back but it also sort of wasted Thiago. The Spaniard has been poor defensively in a Liverpool shirt but he hasn’t set the world alight creatively either, and part of this has been his positioning. He’s generally only been used in one of the more advanced midfield roles against more open teams where his creative ability isn’t as needed. Against lower blocks, he’s often been used at the base of the midfield, making it easier for Liverpool to play out but so that he’s not in a position to unlock defences with a through ball in the final third.
It was reflective of Liverpool’s current predicament that they were essentially doing the right things yet it still didn’t feel as if they would score.
Everton doubled their lead with a dubious penalty. Even if the decision was questionable, the goal still originated from a familiar issue: Jordan Henderson was forced off through injury and his replacement Nathaniel Phillips missed a challenge in Everton’s half then didn’t have the pace to recover, leaving Trent Alexander-Arnold alone.
For years, no matter the form going into the match, Everton have found a way to bottle the derby. As a result, failure to even win a point is a sign of something wrong for Liverpool. The last time it happened was during the disastrous spell of Roy Hodgson, and the last time it happened at Anfield wasn’t even in this century, last occurring in 1999.
The title is gone, but with each passing week it’s looking harder and harder for Liverpool to pull out of their nosedive and rescue Champions League football for next season.
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