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Clinical Torres kills off Everton
David Moyes keeps saying Everton are edging closer to the top four with each passing year but results keep insisting otherwise.
Liverpool won the 208th Merseyside derby more comfortably than the score might suggest, Fernando Torres's reliable finishing consigning Everton to a third successive home defeat in the league - they will enter October without picking up a single point at Goodison - and leaving Moyes still waiting to join Harry Catterick and Howard Kendall as the only Blue managers to win three times against the old enemy. The fact Rafa Benitez has already won six derbies in a shorter time shows the reality of Everton's position.
Results do not tell the whole story though and the feeling persists that Moyes has only himself to blame for not winning more games against big clubs. He left Louis Saha on the bench here at the start and sent out his team with five midfielders and Yakubu on his own up front, a strategy that looked more like an attempt to avoid defeat than secure victory, especially as the solo striker seemed unhappy in the role and wasted much of his limited service by flinging himself to the floor in search of free-kicks. Referee Mike Riley booked him for diving in the second half after he had beaten Martin Skrtel and got himself into a position where a shot at goal might have brought a better reward. All too predictably, Moyes decided to send Saha on when Everton went a goal down, but by the time the substitute took the field the home side had shipped another and the cause was lost.
Joe Royle used to say the ball was an optional extra for the first hour or so of a Merseyside derby and that the only chance of any football was when the fighting had stopped. Liverpool adopted exactly the sort of patient approach that was required, waiting until all the sound and fury had died down then picking Everton's pocket with two clinically taken goals in three minutes. The visitors hardly threatened Tim Howard's goal in the first half, yet once Torres struck Everton's confidence evaporated to the extent that Liverpool could have ended up winning by three or four. After failing to score since the opening day of the season Torres could have had a hat-trick, he had the ball in the net in the 68th minute as well but was recalled by a linesman.
'You really need to use your brain in these type of games' said Benitez. 'Of course passion is important in a derby, but you win with your brain and with your muscles as well.'
The day might have panned out differently for Everton had Tim Cahill accepted a close-range chance after 14 minutes. The Australian is normally deadly close to goal but could not adjust his feet quickly enough when a corner came straight through to him. The miss seemed to bother him and he completed an off-colour afternoon by collected a red card for catching Xabi Alonso after the ball had gone. It was not the most reckless of two-footed tackles, but Cahill did not do himself any favours by refusing to acknowledge Riley's whistle and by the time his manager had urged him to turn round it is possible the referee took a more severe view of his offence. By Merseyside derby standards of controversy this was pretty insipid stuff, particularly as it occurred when the result was beyond doubt.
A cutting edge as surgically precise as Torres allows them to do just that and Moyes must surely rethink the wisdom of aiming for goalless draws when up against such a lethal finisher. 'We wanted to be harder to beat than we have been,' Moyes said revealingly. 'But in the end Torres was clinical.' Indeed he was. He scored his first at the far post after Robbie Keane sent over a deep cross from the left, and an absurdly easy second minutes later when Phil Jagielka dispossessed Dirk Kuyt in the area and Everton stood around instead of clearing the loose ball.
Two goals, three minutes, game over. Everton were never going to come back, and all they managed before the end was a shot from Saha that missed and a chance for Yakubu that Marouane Fellaini, making a promising home debut in difficult circumstances, inadvertently deflected away from his team-mate.
By that stage the Liverpool fans in the Bullens Road stand were belting out 'You'll Never Walk Alone', while the home support attempted to drown them out with whistles. This is not a gulf that is being bridged. 'You could see the difference £100m can make,' Moyes said grimly. 'But whatever the cost I expect my teams to compete.'
THE FANS' PLAYER RATINGS AND VERDICT
Simon Paul, NSNO.co.uk
Very disappointing, especially after the first half, when we had the better chances - Cahill tried to be too clever with his, when he should have put his lace through the ball. After the break we tried to play more football, which was our downfall. Cahill should not have been sent off - as Moyes said, it wasn't even the worst tackle in the match and their guy went down as if he was shot. Gerrard was again trying to referee the match - I'm sure Riley was going to send Arbeloa off, but Gerrard had a quiet word and it was yellow. Saha looked lively when he came on and has a wicked shot, it was a shame he didn't start and it is disappointing to approach a home game with just one man up front. Yet again Liverpool could celebrate at Goodison, it's not nice - especially when they are sat next to you
The fan's player ratings Howard 6; Hibbert 7 (Saha , Yobo 8, Jagielka 9, Lescott 5; Arteta 7, Neville 7, Fellaini 6, Osman 6, Cahill 7; Yakubu 6
James Carroll, ShanklyGates.co.uk
It's not often we get a derby where we're so comfortably on top - I can't remember Everton having a meaningful shot on target. We absolutely dominated midfield, Alonso and Gerrard were awesome and the only doubt was creating chances. Torres has been a little off recently, the Everton fans were singing 'Who are yer?' at him - well they know now. What a finish for the first - and he was harshly denied a hat-trick. Their supporters started to leave after the second goal and were streaming out when Cahill got set off. Still no goal for Keane, but he works so hard and has had his best games against Man United and Everton, so no one is complaining.
The fan's player ratings Reina 6; Arbeloa 8, Carragher 8, Skrtel 9, Dossena 6; Kuyt 8, Alonso 9 (Lucas n/a), Gerrard 9, Riera 7 (Aurélio 6); Torres 9, Keane 8 (Pennant n/a)
Fernando Torres regains form
LIVERPOOL have never won the Premier League but in those distant days when they used to monopolise the old First Division they had the happy knack of claiming maximum points when not playing particularly well. They have got the habit back, and it augurs well for their prospects of making a genuine challenge for the title for the first time since 1997. The latest Merseyside derby — the 208th — will not linger long in the memory, neither team having played anywhere near their best, but two goals in the space of three second-half minutes from Fernando Torres gave Liverpool a deserved victory which took them back to the top of the table at lunchtime yesterday.
Everton have now lost each of their first three home games in the league. Tim Cahill’s red card after 80 minutes, for a bad foul on Xabi Alonso, had no effect on the outcome, and manager David Moyes has more serious matters than that unsigned contract to concern him. It worries him that Everton have been beaten four times already this season, and that a defence once renowned for its resilience has now gone 12 matches without keeping a clean sheet. The Everton manager said: “This is the same group of players, in the main, that finished fifth last season, and our performances aren’t matching that. It is my job to try to find that form again.”
Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez was relieved that Torres, who rattled in 33 goals last season, is back in the groove, having previously failed to score since the opening-day victory over Sunderland. “His goals enable the team to play with confidence,” the Liverpool manager said. “Fernando thinks he can score even more than last season, but I’ll be happy if he gets 32.”
Derbies may be the biggest games in Everton’s calendar, but Liverpool have bigger fish to fry and are glad to get these local skirmishes out of the way without damage, either physical or arithmetical. It was not atypical when Cahill went through Alonso, whose minor ankle injury could have been a lot worse. Moyes felt the card should have been yellow, not red, but as the fragrant Mandy once said, he would, wouldn’t he?
Everton gave a debut to Marouane Fellaini, their £15m midfield recruit from Standard Liege, and the tall, 20-year-old Belgian made a sound if unspectacular start, passing the ball economically and performing his defensive duties diligently. To his relief, he will not come up against Alonso and Steven Gerrard every week.
There was also a home debut for Louis Saha, as a second-half substitute, but he also found it hard to make an impact. Of Fellaini, Moyes said: “I thought his early booking \ affected him, but for a 20-year-old boy coming into a team not playing at its best, I thought he did well. We should be helping him, rather than the other way around.”
Pepe Reina, in the Liverpool goal, was not called upon to make a single save, but it was Everton who should have taken the lead in the 15th minute when Mikel Arteta’s corner from the left was deflected to the far post, where Cahill, eight yards out, made a horrible hash of an inviting chance, miskicking wildly. Not long afterwards Fellaini had a shot cleared off the line by Jamie Carragher, whose heroics counted for nought when the referee indicated that Reina had been fouled into dropping the ball. That was the extent of it as far as Everton’s attacking threat was concerned.
Liverpool fashioned only one scoring opportunity in a prosaic first half, Phil Jagielka’s timely intervention balking Torres on the edge of the six-yard line. It was a different story, however, once the stalemate had been broken in the 59th minute — a feat accomplished when Robbie Keane did well to chase down a through-ball from Alonso and cut it back from the byline on the left for Torres to volley in from eight yards. Before Everton could steady themselves, it was 2-0 and game over, Torres shooting firmly past Tim Howard from 12 yards. The goal was hard on Jagielka, who had dispossessed Dirk Kuyt with a last-ditch tackle, only for the loose ball to run straight to Spain’s scorer extraordinaire. Torres had the ball in the net again, but the hat-trick strike was disallowed for an earlier foul by Kuyt on Joleon Lescott.
Gerrard might also have made it 3-0, from 25 yards, but was denied by Howard’s flying save, and Everton and their fans were glad to hear the final whistle. Ten minutes from the end, the small visiting contingent launched into some celebratory choruses of You’ll Never Walk Alone, and the disgruntled majority were too deflated to drown them out. Happy days for Liverpool, blue ones indeed for the other half of Merseyside.
EVERTON: Howard 6, Hibbert 6, (Saha 63min), Yobo 6, Jagielka 7, Lescott 6, Arteta 6, Cahill 5, Neville 5, Osman 5, Fellaini 6, Yakubu 5
LIVERPOOL: Reina 6, Arbeloa 6, (Pennant 86min), Carragher 7, Skrtel 6, Dossena 6, Kuyt 7, Gerrard 8, Alonso 7 (Lucas 86min), Riera 5 (Aurelio 67min), Keane 6, Torres 8
Sunday Telegraph By Derick Allsop
Last Updated: 10:43PM BST 27 Sep 2008
Fernando Torres double strike highlights gulf in class in Merseyside derby
The symbolic divide of Stanley Park has rarely been wider. Liverpool made that short, parochial journey to demonstrate how far apart these two clubs now stand.
Two second-half goals by Fernando Torres confirmed the class distinction, but all over the pitch Liverpool’s players were a notch or more above their counterparts.
This was Everton’s third consecutive Premier League defeat at the hands of their neighbours and if they had grounds for complaints over their fate in the equivalent fixture last season, there can be no arguments this time.
Ironically, Everton had the first opportunity to draw blood and Tim Cahill’s miss signposted the course of the day for player and club. He was sent off by referee Mike Riley, the referee regarded as the “yellow peril” of the Premier League, for a foul on Xabi Alonso 10 minutes from the end, but by then Everton were doomed anyway.
David Moyes, the Everton manager, said: “I don’t think it was a sending-off and I don’t think anybody in the ground thought it was a sending-off. It warranted a yellow, not a red.’’
More worrying for Moyes must be the broader context of his team’s plight. They have lost all three home matches this term, are out of the Carling Cup and will be severely challenged to avoid elimination from the UEFA Cup later this week.Liverpool, in contrast, moved to the top of the table, if only temporarily, and retain a healthy interest in all other ventures, home and abroad.
They dominated possession in the first half without fashioning a genuine chance, their passing game simply exposing the limitations in Everton’s ranks. While Steven Gerrard and Alonso enjoyed the freedom of Goodison Park, Everton’s most creative player, Mikel Arteta, was shackled by his right-side role, unable to flex the full range of his talents.
Phil Jagielka, at least, was deployed in his natural role, in central defence, and for 58 minutes he, more than anyone in blue, contained the menace of Torres.
But then the Spaniard struck twice in three minutes and the contest was over. Only a mysterious “infringement” deprived the Spaniard of a hat-trick. His first goals since the opening day of the season fed an appetite to equal or better his tally of 33 last season.
“I wasn’t worried that I hadn’t scored for some games,’’ he said. ''I feel I can score as many but the important thing is first to stay at the top.”
His manager, Rafael Benitez, maintains he would settle for 32 from his compatriot and the consistent reproduction of the form that eventually suppressed Liverpool’s neighbours.
“In these games you have to play with passion and also with your brains,’’ Benitez said. ''We have confidence now and the team has a balance. We know we can do well.”
For Moyes these are anxious times. “The start to the season does worry me because it is the same group of players in the main that finished fifth last year,’’ he said. ''But the difference of £100 million showed out there.”
Despite Liverpool’s superiority, Everton ought to have been in front after 13 minutes. Arteta sent in a skidding cross but Cahill, normally a clinical finisher, fluffed the chance.
There was to be no reprieve for Everton when Robbie Keane clipped a cross from the left and Torres, arriving unchallenged, swept Liverpool ahead. The Spaniard doubled the advantage three minutes later. Keane was again involved and, although Jagielka barred Dirk Kuyt’s path to goal, the ball rolled conveniently for Torres, who duly dispatched it.
How the derby was won and lost
1 Fernando Torres managed to be the difference between the sides despite not playing particularly well and being effectively shackled by Phil Jagielka. That is what Rafael Benitez paid £24 million for – the best centre-forward in Europe.
2 The defensive weaknesses that have plagued Everton this season re-surfaced. The Everton of David Moyes was traditionally built on defensive solidity. That has evaporated in the early months – they have yet to keep a clean sheet.
3 Everton are not a side who can afford to squander the kind of chance that Tim Cahill missed in the first half but they did not deserve to lose him to a red card from Mike Riley. Of their other key midfielders neither Mikel Arteta nor Marouane Fellaini could drag the match back Everton’s way.
Independent on Sunday By Ian Herbert at Goodison Park
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Everton 0 Liverpool 2: Red-letter day for Torres but it's derby blues for Everton
Perhaps it was Fernando Torres's absence from last season's Goodison derby which led David Moyes to overlook him when asked before this game who he feared most in Liverpool's side. The Everton manager will not be making that mistake again. Three minutes and two touches of the ball were all it took for the Spaniard to condemn Moyes' side to further misery in this fixture and in this season.
Unacquainted with Goodison Park Torres might have been before yesterday, and perhaps still adjusting to life after the euphoria of Spain's glorious summer, but he does not tend to pass up the kind of opportunities which Everton handed him. Other managers will be paying heed too: Liverpool have progressed through much of their best six-game start to a Premier League campaign without a firing Torres, and their threat with him is untold.
Torres's opener, a free volley from five yards after Robbie Keane had controlled a Xabi Alonso ball which seemed just beyond him and chipped the ball over, and his second, a smoothly dispatched shot after Phil Jagielka's challenge on Dirk Kuyt saw the ball fall into his path, were his response to the kind of defensive gifts which were redolent of what Moyes' side have provided all season. "We can go on and win the League," Torres said last night. "And I believe I can go on and score more than I got last season." His manager is inclined to agree – on the last point, at least. "It is possible," Benitez said. "He has confidence, everything. We want to see the team winning, and if he scores 33 I will be pleased too."
The individual who left a less pleasing imprint on the game than Torres was the referee, Mike Riley, whose decision to send Tim Cahill from the field in the 79th minute – the 17th red card in 33 Merseyside derbies – was questionable. Cahill, perhaps incensed by Alvaro Arbeloa's scything tackle on him three minutes earlier, allowed his following leg to fell Alonso after a tackle, but even the Spaniard was unconvinced by Riley's decision. "Xabi said it [the challenge] could have been worse for him," Benitez said.
The six yellow cards Riley issued did not reflect a game in which tempers only periodically flared, but the one he issued to Torres, for his second piece of dissent, was fateful. It triggered a response in the 24-year-old, and within 10 minutes he had scored. An Everton defence which had looked resolute enough until then – Jagielka was a colossus throughout – then looked as if it was about to implode.
Kuyt had the ball in the net minutes after Torres's second but was adjudged to have fouled Joleon Lescott. Then Torres dispatched an angular right- foot volley, but he was adjudged to have handled the ball as he took down Andrea Dossena's cross. It denied Torres the first hat-trick in the fixture since Ian Rush's 24 years ago, as did Jagielka when, after Torres had spun past Cahill and shaped to cut inside him, the defender beat the ball away with an immaculate challenge.
No matter. The comprehensive way Liverpool were dismembering Everton made grim viewing as the visitors raced to their seventh win in nine at Goodison, and Benitez's dance across the pitch at the end – not a familiar spectacle – said everything about what he think it means.
Moyes had asked his side's fans "to be mindful that obscenities directed at opposition players can often spur them on", and none of the bile directedat Steven Gerrard last season was heard, but Liverpool chants of "going down" hurt at a ground where Everton have still not won all season. "Our start does worry me because it's the same group of players in the main that finished fifth last year, but our performances have not matched that," Moyes said.
Liverpool's threat was evident from the start as Keane, who showed good movement, and Albert Riera laid siege to the left flank. Riera eventually managed to round Tony Hibbert and cross, but Torres was not allowed to get a shot in. When Torres returned the compliment, Riera fired over.
Everton might have started as the team with less self-control – Marouane Fellaini was booked for hacking at Arbeloa after eight minutes – but they gradually halted the Liverpool rhythm and created the best opening before the break.
Mikel Arteta's 13th-minute corner somehow skidded across a packed penalty area and fell at the feet of Cahill, who characteristically ghosted in and uncharacteristically executed an air shot. Yakubu might have scored just after the break, too, if he had finished the job after drifting past Martin Skrtel instead of diving in search of a penalty. But defence was all Everton could offer. Pepe Reina did not have a shot to save
