LAUGHING IT OFF
IT IS easy enough to measure the gap between Liverpool and Everton numerically – 26 points after 14 Premier League games to be precise.
Yet as mind-blowing a statistic as it is, that gulf is nothing compared to the gaping chasm that has opened up in the immediate prospects of the clubs.
Everton are in crisis. They go into tonight’s game with manager Marco Silva on the brink of the sack and just two points above the relegation zone.
But Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp believes it is a chance for the old enemies to cure their ills.
It is a magic bullet, he says, an opportunity to solve a lot of problems in one spectacular evening of Merseyside derby passion.
“I had this situation with Borussia Dortmund against Schalke a lot of times,” explained
German Klopp. “In the first two years we were in a worse situation than them but we could fix a lot in the one game we played them.
“After that we were always in a better situation than them, so for them it was like, ‘OK, today we can solve 80 per cent of our problems’.”
No one expects Everton to win – not even their own supporters.
Everyone expects embattled Portuguese Silva to be shown the door if his team are beaten.
So, in snooker parlance, it is almost a shot to nothing, a free hit, because it is 20 years since Everton won a league game at
Anfield. For Klopp, however, that recent record works in favour of his opponents.
“That history we cannot really involve – we never use that before a game – because the history in this case is so positive that it does not help,” he said.
“It is much more difficult to fight that, to be honest, because it helps more the other team to be the first to win in a long time.
“Everything that Everton did in the last few years shows how ambitious they are and they will stay ambitious – and they will be ambitious to beat us.”
Klopp has warned his Liverpool players that they must be ready for even more desperate opponents, even more passionate and even more determined. And