Chris Beesley tackles an Everton talking point from the 2-1 defeat to Liverpool in the first Merseyside Derby at Hill Dickinson Stadium
17:10, 20 Apr 2026Updated 00:01, 21 Apr 2026
Idrissa Gueye of Everton is challenged by Virgil van Dijk of Liverpool (Photo by Molly Darlington/Getty Images)
It’s always illuminating to hear what others think of the flashpoints in a Merseyside Derby and the historic first one at Hill Dickinson Stadium was of course no different.
After Everton and Liverpool faced each other in the league for the first time in over 11 years on September 1962, Leslie Edwards wrote in the ECHO of the day’s contentious decisions: “Just as 73,000 saw all these incidents so there must be 73,000 different versions of what happened and why. They will mostly be coloured by according to the redness or blueness of the people who hold them.”
Quite. So, it was interesting to be in earshot of a couple of neutral fans who support other clubs when it came to digesting Liverpool’s 100th minute 2-1 win over Everton.
Even they felt there was an air of inevitability to the game’s dramatic final act but they both concurred that if there is a God then he wouldn’t keep allowing Everton to lose Merseyside Derbies in such a fashion. This once evenly-matched fixture has, on the whole, become ridiculously lopsided in recent times, but of course the Blues are just expected to grin and bear it.
FOLLOW OUR EVERTON FC FACEBOOK PAGE! Latest EFC news and analysis from via the Liverpool Echo’s dedicated FB page
When Everton secured their last derby win, 2-0 on April 24, 2024, it was their first at Goodison Park for some 13-and-a-half years. They haven’t triumphed in front of fans at Anfield this century with their loyal but long-suffering fans still waiting to party like it’s 1999 again.
Among all of that, we’ve had Jurgen Klopp, the same manager who declared that the derby was like a “World Cup final for Everton,” – when previewing a Liverpool game against Manchester United – run into the centre circle to celebrate a stoppage time winner and snap at a child when a ball boy made a quip about the quote after a goalless draw at Goodison.
Unlike the passionate German, his successor Arne Slot is generally much more cool, calm and collected. Curiously, despite delivering the club’s first title success in front of fans for 35 years, his more mellow approach seems to have prompted plenty of Kopites to call for his head this term after a downturn in results.
However, the one time that the Dutchman did boil over, was after the 2-2 draw at the Blues last season and unfortunately, he was far from alone given he was one of four recipients of a post-match red card with others also overstepping the mark among ugly scenes. Liverpool didn’t even lose the game, despite what Slot moaned about to Michael Oliver at the time, the result was never going to derail their title tilt.
Yet, when speaking in his pre-match press conference for the trip to Hill Dickinson Stadium, the Reds head coach insisted it was the referee rather than the atmosphere that got to him. That’s strange, because despite a lengthy VAR check, there was nothing wrong with James Tarkowski’s late equaliser.
We’re told the Stockley Park investigation took so long because not only was the goal being checked for offside, it was also being examined for a Beto challenge on Ibrahima Konate in the build-up which is rich irony given how when the tables were turned, the Frenchman escaped a second yellow card for a blatant pull on the Blues striker in the Anfield derby of the previous season.
But despite this fixture having infamously produced the most sendings off in Premier League history, the strange phenomenon of Liverpool players avoiding bookings continued by the waterfront at the weekend. The Reds committed 12 fouls to the Blues’ eight, yet somehow none of their players were cautioned.
Possibly the most inexplicable call of them all surrounded the match-winner himself. Never mind Evertonians with their supposed blue-tinted glasses, even esteemed journalist Henry Winter, someone without a dog in the fight, told his 1.1million followers on X (formerly Twitter): “How on earth did Virgil van Dijk not get booked for that challenge on Gueye? An angry Jordan Pickford booked for dissent.”
Never mind decades of refereeing injustices from the likes of Clive Thomas, Graham Poll and Mark Clattenburg, or Alan Robinson, who twice denied Everton what looked like clear-cut penalties against Liverpool in Wembley cup finals in the 1980s, there doesn’t have to be a huge, smoking gun moment when it comes to the men in the middle giving the Blues a raw deal. It was cruel to chalk off Iliman Ndiaye’s goal, but VAR showed that Jake O’Brien was indeed offside in the build-up while there seemed nothing wrong with either of the Reds goals, but instead this was a case of ‘death by a thousand cuts’ in terms of Christopher Kavanagh’s general approach to proceedings.
For Liverpool, it’s now four games in a row that this particular referee has not booked any of their players. For Everton, just add this latest disappointment to a string of Kavanagh controversies.
Not only was he the VAR official who got Michael Keane sent off for pulling Wolves striker Tolu Arokodare’s hair in January; on April 26 last year he failed to award Everton a penalty at Chelsea when home keeper Robert Sanchez wiped out Vitalii Mykolenko; on January 24, 2024, he sent of Dominic Calvert-Lewin in Everton’s FA Cup tie at Crystal Palace despite a free-kick not being given in real time (a decision that the club got rescinded by appeal); on November 7, 2021, he overturned his original decision to award Everton a penalty against Spurs when Richarlison was challenged by Hugo Lloris and then later sent off Mason Holgate while on March 1, 2020, he showed another red card to Carlo Ancelotti after the final whistle when the Blues boss was furious with Calvert-Lewin’s last-minute winner against Manchester United being chalked off by VAR as Gylfi Sigurdsson was deemed to be in an offside position, despite lying prostrate on the turf at the time.
This isn’t a: “Premier League, corrupt as f**k,” cry from the terraces. Nobody at the ECHO is suggesting bias from the officials – after all both clubs are our local teams – but, taking to the same social media platform as Winter, Everton’s official statistician Gavin Buckland summed up the mood for Blues.
He wrote: “Catching up on Sky coverage of game. Stupid thing I know but Rob Hawthorne says at start of second half: “Liverpool lost on their first three visits to Goodison Park.” Why doesn’t he say: “Everton won the first three derbies at Goodison.” Think I know why.
When met with the reply to his original post by Craig Drummond saying: “Gotta keep those Sky TV paymasters happy if he wants work again next season,” Buckland remarked: “Possibly but it’s small moments like this that shows you what the agenda and priorities are.”