Report by
Dave Usher at Anfield
I’m not a big believer in ‘what goes around comes around’ because there are just too many despicable individuals riding high in life. Every now and then though karma does come into play, and for Evertonians to be crying about a ‘soft penalty’ and narrow defeat just a couple of weeks after the daylight robbery they pulled at the same end of Anfield a few weeks ago, well it’s pretty damn satisfying.
The penalty was soft, no question about it. Outside the box you’d maybe expect to get a free-kick for that more often than not, but inside you’re going to get that maybe one or two times out of ten, three at a push (or in this case a pull!). But soft as it was, it was every bit as much a penalty as the one that handed them a scabby draw which they celebrated as though they’d just won a treble. More so in fact, as unlike Calvert-Lewin, Lallana didn't initiate the contact, he just exaggerated it.
Of course the Blues were adamant that it was a foul on Calvert-Lewin, and suddenly everyone seemed to be trotting out this bizarre mantra of “well if you put your hands on a striker you’re giving the referee a decision to make”. It wasn't just Evertonians, it was Sam Allardyce and the vast majority of journalists and pundits who covered the game too.
That was the thing that bothered me more than anything. It bothers me even more now when some of those same pundits and journalists are describing the Lallana penalty as ’soft’ and suggesting it’s not a foul. Look, I know there’s always a bias towards the little guy and everyone wants to see the giant toppled, but the hypocrisy in the reaction to these two incidents was astounding, not least from Fat Sam.
Let’s revisit what he said about the Lovren / Calvert-Lewin incident:
“Don’t put your hands on a forward in the box. Don’t mess with him, don’t push him, don’t touch him. If you do, you run the risk of giving a penalty away”.
His view on this one? “I think the referee made a mistake”.
Life comes at you fast sometimes, eh?
At least Klopp is consistent when he says he didn’t think either of them were penalties. He was incredulous at the reactions in his press conference a few weeks ago so it must have been pretty sweet for him to go in there this time and basically take the piss by saying “Hey, it must be a penalty because you all told me you can't put your hands on a striker in the box”.
In real time I thought it was a penalty but I also thought Mané should have buried the loose ball and because the ball had fell to him I was worried the ref would have ignored the penalty because he’d played the advantage. Thankfully he pointed to the spot anyway.
We've missed a few recently and don’t really have a recognised penalty taker at the moment, but of those who were on the pitch, Milner was probably the one most of us would have wanted to see step up. He didn’t disappoint as he kept his nerve in front of the 8,000 rabid blues in the Anny Road to send Pickford the wrong way.
There hadn’t been much in the way of goalmouth action prior to that and at no point did I ever feel like we might run away with it. Whatever we got was going to be hard fought so that penalty was huge, particularly as it was something of a gift.
There is never any shortage of talking points following a derby. Even the shit ones usually have something mad in them, often involving a red card or the non awarding of one. When I saw who was refereeing this game I knew there’d be controversy because he’s the worst ref in the league and this game was far too big for him.
Everton will complain about the penalty but they’re conveniently overlooking the leniency shown towards some of their players. Wayne Rooney for example, whose head had clearly gone right from the start of this game. The other week he was in control and never once looked like getting in trouble. This time he was spoiling for aggro right from the off.
He fouled Matip so long after the ball had gone that I didn’t even see it and it was only the roar of the crowd that drew my attention to it. That could easily have been a yellow card as it was needless and reeked of trying to set an example to his team-mates to get stuck into us.
Madley should have stepped in and warned him then, but he did nothing and within no time Rooney flew in with a reckless late challenge on Gomez, which earned him the yellow card he’d clearly been looking for. You’d think that might calm him down, but no. He spent the rest of the half yelling at the ref over every decision that went against them and in the end had to be taken off before he was sent off.
Early in the second half he dragged big Emre down on the touchline, after the midfielder had mugged him and then shrugged him aside. While the referee was right not to book him for that as it was just a free-kick and nothing more, he was probably one more foul away from getting his walking papers and Allardyce did the sensible thing and hooked him soon after.
As hyped up as Rooney was though, he looked like a picture of calm and assurance in comparison to Mason Holgate. That lad’s head went completely after he gave the penalty away and not long after he was involved in one of the most unsavoury incidents I’ve seen in a long while.
It started when Lallana pressed and forced a mistake from Pickford. Holgate collected the ball but Firmino had followed Lallana’s lead and we were hunting the ball like a pack of hungry dogs. Bobby dispossessed him and was shepherding the ball out for a throw in when he was first nudged, and then shoved, in the back by the defender, sending him hurtling into the front row of the Main Stand.
Not enough was made of it at the time, either by the ref or by the TV analysts. That’s as dangerous and cowardly an act as you’ll see this weekend and had it not been a young English player who was the perpetrator I’m sure much more would have been made of it. Honestly, I thought it was fucking dreadful, and it gets worse with every replay I watch.
For me it’s worse than a bad tackle because the ball wasn't in play and the intent to injure was there. He knew what he was doing and how dangerous it was, but he was pissed off and not in control of his emotions after conceding a pen and then being embarrassed by Firmino.
Bobby could easily have been seriously injured by it, as could any of the fans he went crashing into. That should have been a straight card for Holgate, but Madley froze and Firmino understandably went looking for retribution.
What happened next has somehow allowed Everton and Holgate to turn the situation around completely so that no-one is talking about his cowardly act, and instead the narrative is about whether Firmino racially abused Holgate in the aftermath. Yes, we’re back here again folks.
Comparisons will be made with the Suarez / Evra incident but this was completely different because Firmino had a camera on him the entire time and the referee was right on the spot. In fact, the referee was holding him back and was stood directly between the two players. This isn’t one man’s word against another, there were a shitload of witnesses plus ample video evidence.
Firmino said something in Portuguese (which numerous lip readers have translated as “Are you crazy? You son of a bitch / mother fucker”). Holgate then goes mad and accuses Firmino of using the deplorable N word. We’ll wait and see how this comes out in the wash, but if he said what Holgate accused him of then the referee would definitely have heard it, as would several players who were in the immediate vicinity.
None of them reacted, and the cameras failed to pick anything up either. Are we seriously expected to believe that Firmino used THAT word while surrounded by players from both teams and with the referee so close that he was actually holding him back from an opponent, and that nobody reacts to it?
I’m not going to speculate on Holgate’s motives, but one thing we can say for certain is that because of his accusation nobody seems to be talking about the complete shithouse move he pulled in shoving a defenceless player into the crowd, or the fact he then manhandled the referee afterwards.
Regardless of what comes from the FA investigation regarding the comments, Holgate should be banned for that shove as it was an appalling thing to do and it was deliberate. He won’t be banned though. Instead, Firmino’s name will be dragged through the mud, regardless of whether he is cleared of any wrongdoing or not.
Firmino did well to keep his cool after that for the rest of the game, as did Holgate if he genuinely believed he had been called what he claimed he had been called. The game had been threatening to boil over at that point but the second half was generally played in a decent enough spirit, other than the continued attempts of the permanently angry James McCarthy to kick anything he could catch, which fortunately for our lads wasn’t much as he’s a fucking yard dog who was a yard off the pace all night. One dirty horrible bastard that.
We were in complete control of the game but needed the second goal to make it safe. Lallana had a chance following a lung busting run through the middle, but he expended that much energy to get there he had nothing left to produce a finish and he scuffed it wide. Big Virgil headed our best chance straight at the keeper. He should have scored but it was encouraging to finally have a legitimate threat, as Lovren and Matip have usually got heads like a fucking 50 pence piece (Lovren’s brilliant header at Burnley prompted me to put ‘usually’ in that sentence!).
Everton had posed no real threat but that means nothing as we had discovered to our cost the other week. In fairness, we weren’t creating anything clear cut either and it was all very laboured, but we did look the more likely scorers before we got caught cold.
Their equaliser came out of nowhere from one of our corners. You don’t see that very often, it’s usually us doing that to other teams and it’s not nice being on the receiving end, especially when the counter attack was led by fucking Phil Jagielka!! They worked it well to be fair. Bolasie got the better of Lallana on the edge of their box (Lallana was goosed at that point and subbed soon after) and found Lookman, who was in far too much space on the left touchline. He picked out the run of Jagielka and although it looked like the move had stalled as we got numbers back to hold him up, when he laid it back to Sigurdsson the midfielder nonchalantly rolled it into the corner.
Karius didn’t even move. I wouldn’t expect him to save it but to not move at all suggests he maybe got caught flat footed? Not a mistake as such, and I’m not blaming him for the goal by any means, but it’s never a great look when a keeper stands and watches the ball go in.
Suddenly the outcome of the game was up into the air and the away end had renewed hope. I went from being ultra confident about going through to somewhat fearful that we would go out. They didn’t create much but there were a couple of dangerous crosses that they almost got on the end of and it was a bit hairy.
Everton were miles better in this game than they had been a few weeks ago but they were still shit, which shows just how appalling they’d been in that league game. Imagine having to watch that every week. Imagine having to play like that every week. No wonder they’re such angry bastards.
We were pressing hard for a winner and had a few half chances, but generally it just wasn’t clicking for us. We weren’t getting enough from the two wide men and the midfield was lacking the invention of our former Magician who was on strike for the second time in six months. He’s gone now. Fuck him.
This game looked to be headed towards a replay as Everton were showing little interest in going for it and Pickford was still taking an age over goal-kicks and then just mostly booting for touch. All that changed when we scored, of course, and it was particularly amusing when the Kop wouldn't return the ball. Taste of their own medicine that. Those fuckers were holding onto the ball just TWO MINUTES into the league derby.
I felt throughout the second half that a set-piece was our best chance of scoring. It’s a long time since we’ve been able to say that, but that’s the Van Dijk effect. I brought my daughter to this game (only her second ever game, the first was Wolves last year!) and I said to her after Everton equalised that Van Dijk would head the winner from a corner. After all the celebrations had died down, she looked at me in wonder and asked “How did you know?”. I just tapped my nose.
Little does she know I make these kind of statements and predictions in every game and they virtually never come off. In fact, usually it's the opposite that happens as I'm a bad jinxing bastard for the most part. I had felt good about this one though, as every time he strode forward for a set play he just looked so big and purposeful, it just felt like he was destined to score.
As it turns out the goal was fairly simple because Pickford came for it and got nowhere near it. Matip initially looked like he’d get there but he was shoved in the back by Holgate (would have been interesting to see if Madley would have awarded a pen for that) and Van Dijk came in behind him to head home.
It was fairytale stuff really. The world’s most expensive defender, making his debut for his new club in a local derby and scoring a late winner in front of the Kop. It was perfect really. That should have been the only thing anyone was talking about afterwards, but instead we got all this Holgate / Firmino stuff.
Van Dijk is boss though. Having a centre back who can get us five or six ‘cheap’ goals a season should be a big help, especially in those close games when it might not happening up front and we need a scrappy set-piece. Games like this actually. This was a perfect example. Sometimes you won’t win it through finesse and skill, you need to force the result through brute force. We did it at Burnley through Lovren and Klavan, and this time big Virgil came through for us.
Regular readers will know that I’ve always frowned upon players having their christian name on their shirt, and some had asked how I’d feel about our new number four having ‘Virgil’ on his shirt. After this, I don’t give a fuck if he comes out to face Man City next week with “Usher Stinks” on the back of his shirt. He can do whatever he likes now as far as I'm concerned.
The £75m has already been paid off after this (just as Andy Carroll paid off his fee with a winner against them at Wembley) so whatever we get out of him now is a bonus. He’s not even fit yet and will only get better, but already he looks like everything we hoped we would be. He’s like the big kid in the playground who everyone else is in awe of as he just strides past people while they bounce of him.
He’s cool as fuck and all of our other defenders will look better when they play next to him. Despite the criticism they get, our centre backs are all good players - Klopp wouldn’t have indulged them this long if they weren’t - but there’s been no alpha dog back there until now. They’ll all look better when they play next to big Virgil.
There are two other players I want to single out though. First, Andy Robertson, who was fucking brilliant in this game and had Bolasie in his pocket. We know what Bolasie is capable of and how quick he is, but Robbo kept pace with him without any problems and just wouldn’t be beaten. He then skinned him going the other way and forced a save from Pickford. I really, really like this lad. I like the quiet way he just goes about his business and he’s such a neat and tidy footballer.
The other player I want to mention is Big Sexy. It looks like he’s probably off in the summer but that isn’t preventing him from giving everything he has whenever he’s out there. In this hectic period we’ve had, he’s played every minute of every game. He’s the only one to do that. He’s been good too. Not great, but good, and I don’t think he’s getting the credit he deserves for what he’s doing.
Someone in the Main Stand gave him shit after he dribbled a ball out of play and for a moment Emre lost his cool and exchanged angry words. I felt bad for him when I saw that, as it's probably related to his contract situation and while I can understand people not being happy about that, the lad has not once let it affect his performances or let his commitment waver. If and when he leaves, he can hold his head high.
Unlike the other selfish little bastard who has left us in the lurch mid-season, but I’ll worry about that in a few days as I’m not letting it take the shine off Big Virgil sinking the Blues on his debut. He's the star man because he delivered despite the pressure on him, but Robertson was probably our best player.
Team: Karius; Gomez (Alexander-Arnold), Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Can, Lallana (Wijnaldum), Milner (Solanke); Oxlade-Chamberlain, Firmino, Mané:
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