Everton 0 Liverpool 2

Derbies are weird, and both teams have been awful recently, so I had absolutely no idea how this was going to go, beforehand.  There was still no Torres or Aquilani in the starting line-up for Liverpool, but, to be fair, Everton had a whole bunch of their own injury problems.

The opening ten minutes were typically manic, and not a lot of football was played.  Fittingly, for such a scrappy game, Liverpool took the lead, on 11 minutes, from a wildly deflected Mascherano shot.  It didn’t look like it was on target, so it will probably go down as an own goal from Joseph Yobo.

On 17 minutes, Bilyaletdinov missed an open goal and should really have put the Toffees level.  The chance came from a throw-in in to the box, Liverpool’s defence still looks suspect from set pieces.  Everton were looking quite dangerous and were definitely getting the better of the chances.

On 32 minutes, Jo was caught marginally offside after slotting home from a clever turn.  It would have been what Everton deserved as they continued to press the Reds back.  On 42 minutes, Jo put the ball in the back of the net again, but this time he was ridiculously offside.

The half ended 0-1 to Liverpool, despite them being pretty woeful.  Surely they couldn’t be as bad in the second half.

Well, they weren’t quite as bad, but the pattern of the game continued.  The second half was relatively event free until, on 70 minutes, Reina made a excellent double save from Cahill and Fellaini; I really thought that Everton had scored.

On 79 minutes, Kuyt made it 0-2, following up after Howard parried an Albert Riera shot.  It certainly gave an extremely flattering look to the scoreline.  Thankfully, the game became quite comfortable from that point onwards,  and Liverpool were able to see out the end of the game.

The blue half of the city must have come away baffled as to how they lost, but the Reds did just about enough.  Regardless of the local rivalry, it was a crunch game for Liverpool and it was all about the 3 points.  They didn’t play well, but sometimes you have to get a few scrappy wins to get your form going.  Hopefully this is a fresh start for Liverpool.