Liverpool’s defeat also a lesson for Arsenal + Guardiola on fatigue

Morning all.

I watched last night’s Merseyside derby more in hope than expectation – after all, the last time Everton beat Liverpool at home was October 17th 2010, when a certain Mikel Arteta scored their second goal in a 2-0 win.

I don’t watch Liverpool enough to know if this was completely atypical of them, but they had 76% possession, took 23 shots to Everton’s 16, but never looked quite as dangerous as you would expect. Darwin Nunez missed a great chance in the first half, but beyond that there was a lot of stout defending (I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many stooping defensive headers in one game), and set-piece threat from Sean Dyche’s side.

I don’t need to go through the game, the result is what focus will be on this morning and where it leaves Liverpool in the title race. I don’t think they’re 100% out of it, but at this point of the season, the margin for error is really small. Jurgen Klopp said afterwards:

I can’t say now that we are still fully in it. We need a crisis at Man City and Arsenal and we need to win football games because if they start losing all their games and we do what we did tonight then nothing changes. We are not safe in the Champions League qualification as well so we should just play better football. That would be really good.

So, while it’s a good result for us, I think there’s a real need to just stay in our lane for the time being. It’s ok to be happy that a title rival lost a game, but I’m not counting any chickens just yet. Last night’s game demonstrated very clearly that in a local derby, you just never quite know what’s going to happen. Liverpool’s record against Everton has been far superior in terms of derbies won in recent times, but there have been plenty of draws and the occasional defeat.

When you consider the game we have on Sunday, I’m sure Mikel Arteta will be hammering home that message to his players in his pre-game preparations. Like all of us, I’m sure, he’ll have been…

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Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-04-25 06:48:29

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