Taking Sides: Liverpool vs Everton

It's up for grabs now!

Why haven't you been so keen on the greatest football club in the world since May 1989 then?

The league has improved quite a lot over the last two years though. I'm impressed.

Some people say that this is the last year before Celtic will need a major overhaul; this team is on its way out. I say that the team is over-staying by one year and that the re-jig should have occurred before 2002-3. In the summer lull. Thomson out, he's as much a chimera as Craig Burley (the Celtic edition), Sylla out (another example of * above), so many other people. Leaving the backbone: Larsson, Sutton, Hartson, Hedman, Mjallby, Lambert/Lennon axis. Build around that, with an eye to getting rid of one of the 2Ls.

- dwh.

I'm loving this little run, obv - but I expect it to end at Newcastle. I do genuinely expect us to be ahead of the red filth by the time The Golden Child signs that contract though. Of course, we'll start to slide in the spring - of course, we'll be mediocre again when the injuries come. But this is a far more impressive core EFC team than the one Royle took to Wembley and the top six in the mid-90s, or the free-scoring Campbell/Jeffers-led side that fancied a stab at a UEFA place for two-thirds of 99-00. Things have changed. Out of the Dark Ages at last.

CHRIS KIRKLAND. HAHA!

Ooh, he might even get a game for his club now Jerzy Nolongerclassicek is flailing a bit.

False dawn!

Losing to Sunderland though, sheesh.

I don't know quite what to make of the Liverpool slump - previous winter blips have always carried an air of inevitability about them, as if LFC were riding their luck a little to be where they were, and a rough patch balanced things up. This season, Liverpool could (and should) have won their opening 12 league games and yet now seem utterly bereft of ideas - the swing seems more extreme than before. Alan Green is not a man to be trusted, but he was scathing about both teams on R5 yesterday.

So, on the one hand, Liverpool seem ripe for the picking by an organised, fluent Everton side full of confidence. On the other, they're, erm, spawny gets who might not lose again until March.

I dunno. I plan to go on a long walk next Sunday.

Final whistle goes at Anfield in a match described by the BBC as "tedious". Of course, I was a great big knotty bundle of scrunched-up bags of entangled nerves, so no trip to a Sky-sporting pub or earphones blaring R5 for me... contented myself with housework, a couple of Sea and Cake LPs and the 'live text' updates on the Beeb's website.

Seemed like LFC edged it, Rooney hit the bar and there were a flurry of nasty tackles and yellow cards at the end.

Thank God that's over. Merry Xmas everybody.

Blackburn beat United 1-0, with a first-half Flitcroft goal. Some ex-international who's been knocking around the MUFC reserves came on for the last half-hour, to no great effect.

It was specifically Jim O'Rourke's "I Took The Opportunity To Antique My End Table" remix off Two Gentlemen that got me through the last seven minutes, if anyone's interested. It could work with, say, Brum-Villa too.

Any thoughts on just what Stevie G was trying to do with that 'tackle'? Apart from end Naysmith's career, that is.

For what it's worth I agree with Radio 5, neither team deserved to win it, but as the Guardian said this morning, Moyes bringing on Roonaldo just as the uintroductyion of Heskey and Smicer (who would ever have thought I'd write that sentence?) was a tactical masterstroke.

Let's hope they survive.

Still never mind, they'll be able to concentrate on the league... must practice saying that for when Chris gets in....

Fantastic. They'll be dancing on Westow Hill tonight.

Word is that Reebok are sponsoring Liverpool to the tune of 100 million and that iit's going to be spent on players (hmmm, and not the new Anfield), but if we ain't in the hampions league, we ain't gong to get the best.

Maybe it depends who's choosing them. Houllier spent 43 million on the following outfield ten:

Heggem, Xavier, Traore, Vignal; Cheyrou, Diomede, Biscan, Smicer; Diouf, Heskey.

What a team, eh? To be fair, in a few cases, they helped win LFC those three cups. But a few more were intended to take LFC to the next level. Next level down, I guess. Houllier does seem to be becoming increasingly paranoid and delusional though (not necessarily about the shots-on-goal thing - they do waste a lot of chances, think of the 0-0 home draw with Sunderland).

Or is this a False Dusk?

Out of those ten, I would keep Vignal (will be good in the future and was pretty cheap, he was flying before he got injured), Diouf (apparently had his best 45 minutes for Liverpool in the first half last night) and of course Heskey, who is a god to me (but I haven't seen *that* miss yet).

Smicer though? the sooner we're rid of him the better, he's rubbish. And I ain't too sure about Cheyrou either.

diouf is sadly maligned but i don't think he'll ever be the ticket. squeezing a bit of value out of him by playing him on the wing won't fool anyone

i love cheyrou!! don't u think he looks really good in possession

There's a point around goal 11 where you just see something break inside the goalkeeper and he's only halfway through the ordeal. Goal number 19 is the really insulting one though, the point where he realises he just can't be bothered any more.

Big result for Everton yesterday.

But, miserably, there is no end in sight to the derby drought. 1971-78 was the defining barren spell of my childhood and why Andy King's winner was celebrated so deliriously. This doesn't just surpass that, it's the longest winless run by either team in the history of the fixture. Almost makes one pine for the 1990s.

https://youtu.be/4MJwi0Zwbk4

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/dec/17/carlo-ancelotti-agrees-deal-with-everton-to-take-over-as-manager

I have a curious feeling that this will actually work.

So long Big Dunc

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/dec/17/carlo-ancelotti-agrees-deal-with-everton-to-take-over-as-manager

I have a curious feeling that this will actually work.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, December 17, 2019