You can say a lot of things about Saturday’s Merseyside derby, but you can’t deny it was great fun.
Premier League
Here’s our analysis of an incredible game at Goodison Park …
The law is an ass
Handball law: “I’m going to ruin the 2020/21 Premier League season!”
Offside rule: “Hold my beer …”
What an absolute disgrace it was to disallow Liverpool’s winning goal for one of the most ridiculous offside calls in the history of the game.
How on earth anyone can look at that and say Sadio Mané was offside is a mystery, but here we are.
It’s so tiresome having to constantly to talk about these stupid decisions week in, week out and whether you blame VAR or the offside rule itself is irrelevant. They’re two cheeks of the same arse and they’ve both ruined football as we knew it.
But we just have to accept it, don’t we? It’s the new normal and the game we love has been turned into a science experiment by the nerds in the corridors of power.
At least we can take some comfort from the fact a draw was probably a fair result. And we predicted it would be 2-2 before the game began.
Thank you VAR. Thank you VARy much.
Credit where it’s due
Jordan Pickford was very lucky to stay on the pitch after injuring Virgil van Dijk with an awful challenge early in this match.
The goalkeeper was spared by the fact Van Dijk had been flagged for offside, but it seems he still probably should have been sent off …
Another fine day at the office for football’s lawmakers. Well done lads.
But that aside, Pickford had a magnificent game and made some tremendous saves to keep Liverpool at bay.
Before it was disallowed, his critics were ready to blame the England ‘keeper for failing to keep Jordan Henderson’s shot out but if you ask us, it was a miracle he even got a hand to it.
It. isn’t. his. fault. he’s. got. short. arms.
And what about Dominic Calvert-Lewin? Another brilliant header earned Everton a point and took his tally to 10 goals for the season already.
He’s a great guy and a great player. It’s great to see.
Liverpool in a spot of bother
Liverpool were good here and had that goal not been disallowed, you wouldn’t have begrudged them all three points.
But that injury to Virgil van Dijk has to be worrying. They looked wobbly without their colossus at the back and Jürgen Klopp admitted in his post-match interview that the injury doesn’t look good.
Perhaps Liverpool might be better equipped to cope without Van Dijk if they didn’t have one of the worst goalkeepers in the league currently standing in for the injured Alisson.
We’re suddenly craving Indian food after watching the ball break through Adrián’s poppadom hands for the first goal, and then seeing him go down like a sack of (Bombay) potatoes for the second.
The champions have a couple of winnable games against Sheffield United and West Ham coming next, but they will be desperately hoping to have Van Dijk and Alisson available for the clash with Manchester City on 7 November.
