After a Merseyside derby defined by the red cards, a match that may be remembered for the one what wasn’t. After a meeting with Everton that brought Liverpool frustration, one that instead produced celebration with the Kop chorusing about winning the league. After Arne Slot ended the draw at Goodison Park suggesting referee Michael Oliver was to blame if Liverpool did not win the title came a match when the officiating, however questionable, will not cost them the silverware.
Instead, Diogo Jota assumed the role of derby decider, ending his drought and Liverpool’s mini-slump with a crisp strike; with it, too, went Everton’s unbeaten run, curtailed at nine. What is instead extended is David Moyes’s perhaps never-ending wait for a win at Anfield; it is now 22 games and counting.
The numbers look rather better for Liverpool. A 100th derby win came in the context of defeats to Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle. It was gritty rather than pretty – “hard-fought, definitely,” said Slot – but a 12-point lead at the Premier League summit was restored. Liverpool need a maximum of 13 more to be crowned champions.
But there are facts and there are pictures and the indelible image, perhaps destined to be replayed for quite some time, came early on. This was a second derby to revolve around James Tarkowski: hero for Evertonians at Goodison Park, he was the villain for Liverpool here.
A wild, out-of-control challenge on Alexis Mac Allister meant he clattered first ball and then man, his studs flying into the World Cup winner’s calf. Thankfully, eventually, Mac Allister was able to continue. For the 63rd time, Tarkowski was booked in the Premier League. But, despite a VAR check, he has still never been dismissed. It left Slot shaking his head, his reaction more measured than when Tarkowski levelled in the 98th minute two months ago. He was restrained in his comments, too. “Even people who are not liking Liverpool a lot are saying how clear and obvious it was,” he said.
That may have been a reference to the watching Duncan Ferguson, a sufficiently fearsome figure that he was sent to prison for an act of violence on the football pitch. An Everton cult hero pronounced it a possible leg-breaker and declared it merited a red card. The officials decided otherwise, an odder still decision from the VAR Paul Tierney; Jurgen Klopp’s least favourite official may assume a similar status with Slot.
Moyes, meanwhile, initially felt the yellow card was harsh. “I thought at the time it was a brilliant tackle,” he admitted. “Since I have seen it, we could have been lucky we didn’t get a red. It looked a high one. I think it was the follow-through that looked worse.”
It may not have been what he had in mind when he said football should not be too sanitised. This was frenetic, competitive and, at times, messy but for Liverpool, there was justice of sorts in the result. Briefly, it felt as though Tarkowski’s reprieve could bring a double ...
