ROONEY’S red mist...
Wayne furious at being taken off as Liverpool survive late charge in a drab derby draw
THE saviour of Anfield in December felt like a fool at Goodison Park in April. Sitting on the bench, furiously stuffing his arms into an overcoat, Wayne Rooney barked out a string of profanities.
Sam Allardyce had decided in the 57th minute of a sterile Merseyside derby he had seen enough from Everton’s most talented player and hauled him off; given how poorly Yannick Bolasie had been playing, it was shock to see the No10 flashing on the substitute board but the manager was clear.
So off Rooney stomped, barely acknowledging Allardyce. When Everton last squared up to Liverpool in the Premier League, on a freezing cold Sunday before Christmas, England’s greatest goalscorer had thrashed home a late penalty to pilfer a point.
He was desperate to do something similar here, to give those Evertonians who have suffered through this charmless season something to cling to. A goal, an assist, anything to bring Liverpool to their knees. As it was, the final frenzied conclusion bypassed him, leaving him to mutter dark words.
‘I’ve got no problem with that,’ said Allardyce, after this scruffy match ended in a 0-0 draw. ‘He was upset, it was a Merseyside derby. He isn’t going to say “All right, gaffer, well done”. He can say whatever he likes to me in the office, between the four walls, it will be between me and him.’
Rooney’s desperation to make a mark on this contest was obvious. It was he, in the 15th minute, who tried to gee up a slovenly Everton team, when scurrying after James Milner and sliding into a challenge that won the ball and got the crowd to their feet.
There was a sadness, then, that he should finish the squabble as frustrated bystander, as Allardyce looked to younger legs to try to grind out the club’s first victory over Liverpool since October 2010. It didn’t work. Everton, for all the huff and puff of the last 20 minutes, saw their chance slide away.
Allardyce, as is his way, trumpeted the positives. He explained that his substitutions changed the contest, that fractions and bad luck denied them a winning goal, but Evertonians would not be kidded. They knew, deep down, that they could not have had a better chance to flatten Liverpool.
Predictably, Jurgen Klopp shuffled his starting line-up. Following their exploits against Manchester City on Wednesday — and with the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday— five new faces came in, including Danny Ings and Nathaniel Clyne.
It was to Everton’s detriment, then, that a full week’s uninterrupted preparation did not see them make a fast start and take advantage. You could see from the first whistle, as all the Blue shirts shifted to the left-side of the pitch to await a long, diagonal ball, the intentions of Allardyce. His critics will have viewed it as anti-football and it was to Everton’s detriment that they didn’t attack Clyne, who was starting his first game of the campaign, or Ragnar Klavan — back in the team for the first time since January 1 — from word go.
They were actually fortunate not to find themselves two goals down in the first 15 minutes. Had Mohamed Salah or Roberto Firmino started, Liverpool would have certainly profited but Dominic Solanke found the burden of replacing men who have contributed 61 goals too much. First, in the 12th minute, the England Under-21 international glanced a header from eight yards wide, following good work from James Milner; then, three minutes later, he fired straight at Jordan Pickford after Clyne’s cross cannoned off Seamus Coleman. Pickford’s save was brilliant — he would make an even better one from Milner in the 29th minute, flinging himself to his left to push a shot around the post — but Solanke should not have given the England goalkeeper the chance to intervene. He knew better than anyone it was a bad miss. Everton offered nothing as an attacking force before the interval, other than a curling shot from Yannick Bolasie in the 27th minute that was brilliantly tipped around the post by Loris Karius, and the second period seemed set to follow a similar pattern.
‘The job was to work hard and enjoy the game and then get a result,’ said Klopp. ‘But Ingsy maybe started the emotional period of the game, with a little discussion with Coleman! We controlled the game but, towards the end, Everton had a few exciting moments in our box.’
Those ‘exciting moments’ did not come thanks to any cunning plan. Allardyce’s instructions were for the ball to be hoisted forward quickly at every opportunity. Liverpool, in the main, coped with it but the final 10 minutes were a little more anxious than Klopp would have liked.
Cenk Tosun, who for so long had been left isolated, almost fulfilled his pre-match wish of scoring against Liverpool but his 87thminute header, from Theo Walcott’s cross, squirted across the face of goal and Coleman, failed by inches to connect at the back post. In the next attack an even better opportunity presented itself but Dominic Calvert-Lewin, one of Everton’s substitutes, could not keep his composure and dragged his shot wide when the moment demanded he bury his finish in the Gwladys Street net. Allardyce, theatrically, dropped to his knees. He realised the moment had gone. But, like the season as a whole, something that offered so much gave something so little. The sooner this campaign for Everton ends, the better.