Everton were dealt a major blow before kick-off as Mikel Arteta failed a late fitness test and was replaced by Kevin Kilbane. It's a bit much to say that Everton a one-man team but, as was shown in the second half against Villa last week, they really don't tick when the Spaniard isn't playing.
Everton had the better of the opening exchanges and Tim Cahill had a couple of good openings that he failed to convert. The Blues did have the ball in the net after 10 minutes when Osman dispossessed Crouch and fed the ball through to Beattie. The Everton number eight (or 08 in this game to commemorate Liverpool being the 2008 European Capital of Culture) rounded Reina and slotted home but was flagged offside.
The game was then turned on it's head after 17 minutes when Gerrard picked up two yellow cards in two minutes. His first was for kicking the ball away after Everton had won a free kick and a minute later he chopped down Kevin Kilbane just outside the area. The tackle was late and the ref was left with no choice but to give him his second yellow.
But, had he let some earlier offences go, it may have been avoided. Tim Cahill was shown the first yellow card of the game after 13 minutes for a late challenge on Alonso. It was probably the first bad tackle of the game but it certainly wasn't going to be the last. Had Mr Dowd just given Cahill a warning then he could have shown more leniency throughout the match as there were no malicious tackles during the entire 90 minutes. But once the Aussie had been booked the precedent was set and every mistimed tackle was going to be met with a yellow card.
Unfortunately for the Blues, the loss of Gerrard seemed to galvanise Liverpool and at no point during the match did they look like they were a man down. Everton still had plenty of possession in the first half but never really produced any more openings for Beattie and McFadden up front and Liverpool started to grow in confidence as the half went on.
On 34 minutes Liverpool won a free kick just outside the Everton area and as they lined it up to shoot there was some mad dance routine going on with Stubbs and Kewell in the box. It was a bit like that Brazilian thing where they do cartwheels and stuff around each other…actually it was nothing like that but after much to-ing and fro-ing between the two the ref decided to put an end to their nonsense…and duly booked the pair of them. And that incident pretty much summed up Mr Dowd's performance. He booked players when a simple talking to would have been sufficient.
The game was heading for a goal less half time when an Alonso shot from outside the box took a slight deflection of an Everton defender and went out for a corner. The resulting cross was only cleared behind for another corner from which Liverpool opened the scoring. Alonso curled a pacy ball into the box and Phil Neville headed it past Wright in a goal similar to Big Dunc's against Portsmouth earlier in the season.
It was bad enough going into half time 0-1 down to ten men, courtesy of a Phil Neville own goal, but things got even worse just after the re-start. A long kick from Reina was flicked on to Luis Garcia by Crouch and the Spaniard lifted the ball over Richard Wright who, not for the first time, had taken up a terrible position. Cue the stupid thumb sucking celebration from Garcia. Do you reckon he'd still come up sucking his thumb if he fell into a barrel of tits? Thought so…
A triple substitution was looming when Everton pulled a goal back. Leon Osman lofted a corner into the box and Tim Cahill out jumped the Liverpool defence to head the ball off the post and past Reina. Five minutes later, with the Blues back in the game, Moyes brought on Ferguson for McFadden and van der Meyde for Kilbane to give us a different attacking option and push for an equaliser.
Unfortunately, van der Meyde was not given the chance to make any impact on the match as he was on the pitch for just six minutes before Phil Dowd ended his involvement in the game.
The Dutch winger went up for a header with Alonso on the halfway line and was judged to have led with his elbow. Alonso went down like he'd been shot in the face and it was an early bath for van der Meyde. Speaking of Alonso, does anyone else reckon that his mum cuts his hair for him? If not, she definitely takes him to the barber's and tells them how to cut it. Anyway, The replays showed that our enigmatic winger had his eye on the ball the whole time and it in no way warranted a red card. It certainly wasn't premeditated like Luis Garcia's earlier swipe at Kilbane that went completely unpunished. But in truth, as soon as Gerrard was sent off, there was no way that Everton were going to finish the game with 11 men! Most people probably expected Ferguson to be the man sent off but, amazingly, he lasted a whole ten minutes before the ref saw fit to book him for a shove on Alonso.
The game was then put beyond doubt in the 84th minute when Kewell was given too much time on the edge of the box and fired a screamer past Wright.
And that was pretty much it really. For the third time in four derby's we've basically rolled over against that lot. Before the match, the pundits were saying that Liverpool would have to overcome Everton's physicality and they'd probably feel they were right as the Blues picked up seven bookings to Liverpool's three. But this is just lazy journalists trotting out cliches (a bit like that one) and anyone who has watched us this season would know that we're far from a physical side. The scoreline may have been different had we got stuck into them a bit more, but it's anyone's guess how many would've ended up staying on the pitch had we started putting it about!