Taking Sides: Liverpool vs Everton

Stick him in the reserves, let him net a few and get his confidence back. This is a good plan, just ask Milan Baros. Although, I still have a sinking feeling that Houllier will insist on picking MO against Boro tomorrow. Bah.

I think the manager needs to stop the slide pronto, or he could be in for a rough ride.

(Nipping this in the bud... any potential Championship Manager 2001/02 talk perhaps deserves its own thread. Or contempt.)

It's the Goodison derby in five days' time and to my pleasant surprise (and, no doubt, to the Rednoses' astonishment) Everton remain a sliver ahead of Liverpool in the table going into it. Reading my cautious blabberings above I think I expected us to be about 11th by Easter weekend.

So, what do we reckon? EFC still grinding out narrow victories, LFC vacillating between brilliant and dismal. I suspect a lot rests on Radzinski's fitness and Hyppia's suspension status.

what are you thinking re: chelsea now dr.c?

At the moment I am extremely worried that we will end up fifth - the Villa loss was a dreadful result. I think West Ham might be a tough game as they need the points and they've beaten us once already this season. For next season we need a stronger/larger squad, espec. for Europe - we've been quite lucky with injuries this year, but may not get away with it again. Big problem - no money Priorities - a) a ballwinner to replace Petit and release Lampard b) an international striker - JimmyFloyd's era may be up, Zola needs handling carefully at 37 and Cole is not yet ready. I'd love to get Beattie, but they can't afford him. c) an attacking/wide or central midfielder to give more cover there. I think DeLucas will come good eventually, but Gronkjaer wavers and Stanic is dreadful.

Everton really running out of steam now - bringing Big Dunc on for the last half hour and pitching balls up for him smacks of the bad old days (but nice when they rebound to Wayne's left foot). Very little going on in midfield, a true creative drought in the derby and simply outpassed by Chelsea (again). Radzinski can't come back quickly enough.

Liverpool now finishing as strongly as they did in 2000-01 (didn't they win 6-0 at Ipswich in the closing stages of that season?); we need a Fowler special at the Anfield Road end next Saturday.

Many people have been talking as though United will win all their remaining games. If they had Sunderland after Charlton I'd agree. But Everton, at Goodison, on the final day? I can't see United winning that. In which case, if Arsenal beat Leeds, Soton and Sunderland, the title is likely theirs - possibly on goal difference. No?

(If Arsenal *don't* win the title, Rooney will have played his part by inflicting their first defeat.)

I think Liverpool should be able to overcome their hoodoo with Chelsea, Baros still missed loads of chances against West Brom.

Though none were as bad as Lampard's glorious miss against Fulham.

Man Utd's Goodison victories have become depressingly routine in recent years - I think the opening day of 99-00 with Jaap Stam's hilarious own goal was the only time in the last seven or eight seasons we've got anything off them. However, we matched them for 86 minutes at Old Trafford and I refuse to contemplate a season like this one ending with the anticlimax of a home defeat to anyone...
so 1-1.

I think Liverpool will lose out on a Champions' League place on the ol' GD an' all. (Ideal scenario: they lose to both Man City and Chelsea, Everton pick up six points and the Blue Dream is realised).

I was at a meeting this morning pitching to run Liverpool and Arsenal's online chatroom/community services. That'd be quite fun, I think. Apparently a previous tech employee was fired, but left himself a back door in, and then informed all the LFC users that the moderating team were all from Manchester. With sexy results!

He didn't use 'Ferguson'.

Language!

I think one factor on the final day will be if Everton have anything to play for. If they need a result for a place in the UEFA cup, not an implausible scenario from memory (I've not checked tables), Man U will have it a lot tougher than if they have nothing to gain.

I'd like to think a Moyes team would make it tough for anybody regardless of the circumstances but the capitulation at Loftus Road this afternoon suggests we're in meltdown now. Pah, I get my fantasy result at Anfield and we go and score two own-goals. Blackburn breathing down our necks now for that last UEFA Cup spot, so I guess I have to hope for an Arsenal-Leeds draw and Fergie sending out the youth team at Goodison for a kickabout.

Magnitude of today's Man U victory makes the GD situation kinda interesting; United could win the title with a draw at Everton if Arsenal's three victories are only by a single-goal margin; if the Arse manage a 2-0 somewhere along the way the Gunners will win it on goals scored, as they did in (look away, Pinefox) 1989.

West Ham-Chelsea sounded like a blinder on the radio. They're still going down, of course.

All this rather irrelevant compared to events in Swansea and Exeter. What a day to get married.

There's a part of me that fears next year could be total meltdown.

Ultimately no better than 95-96 (a false dawn before Royle found the carpet whipped from beneath him); remains to be seen whether Everton's satisfying and surprising season-long upswing will be a precursor to disintegration a la Sunderland and Ipswich (Champs Lge contenders in 99-00 and 00-01 respectively) or whether we're about to rejoin the Big Boys' Club like Newcastle and Chelsea have.

Thing that worries me the most: lack of goals. 48 in 38 Premiership games is not very good, and the only time we hit three all season was in a 4-3 defeat at Tottenham. Seven times we came from behind to win, six of them at home with three of those earned with injury-time wonder-strikes. I can only think of three league wins that could be described as comfortable (Fulham & Leeds home, Bolton away). It's all a bit precarious.

As for Liverpool, their failure to meet their own targets is some consolation for this Bitter Blue. I suppose now that the pre-Xmas slump is an annual treat for all Anfieldphobes, it'll be panic stations next season if Liverpool aren't clear at the top by the end of October. Failure in the Cups and out of touch with the leaders and Houllier might go next January. There's an awful lot of talent there, it doesn't seem to be being marshalled terribly well. The Reds need a Moyes. Or an Allardyce!

Has winning a trophy ever rung so hollow? Or losing one mattered so little?

Unhappy at first, but seeing the Liverpool players celebrate it like they'd just won the treble cheered me up no end.

Considering everything that's happened, saving our worst performance of the second half of the season for that game was a blessing.

somewhere in between, i reckon. i think he's done a great job, with limited resources SO FAR. next season will be a test, but expect a healthy tally from roonaldo.

Use other words please?

Basically was it scored with his head or foot or other part of his body?

(* - a Liverpool-supporting friend of mine, sitting a few rows up in the Kemlyn Rd stand, swore Case's corner swung out of play en route to the six-yard box. We didn't have ProZone or Hawk-eye in those days.)

I remember him (I scarcely have the right to use this ghostly verb; only one man on earth deserved the right...