REDS WANT TO PARTY LIKE IT’S 1989
The last time Everton played Liverpool when the Blues were top was in ’89, and goalscorer Ian Rush is hoping for a repeat as his strike secured a 3-1 win for the Anfield side and fired them on to title glory
EVERTON top of the league and Liverpool three points behind echoes a time when the Merseyside rivals almost had a monopoly at the summit of English football.
You have to go back to September 1989 for the last time Everton went into a derby match as league leaders.
And Ian Rush, the man who scored twice in a 3-1 Reds win at Goodison, remembers it as a pivotal game in what proved a tit lewinning season for Liverpool.
He said: “It sounds a bit dramatic to say it now but, honestly, in the team talk before the game we all agreed it really was a must st win for us.
“We knew if we let them get away even n a little, then it would be incredibly hard to bring them back.
“It was about momentum, and we knew we had to stop theirs.”
It was a time that younger football fans may struggle to recognise.
A month before that Merseyside clash, businessman Michael Knighton had juggled a football across the Old Trafford pitch in an illfated bid to buy rivals Manchester United. But the balance of power in the English game in those days lay firmly at the other end of the M62, where between them the Merseyside clubs h had won eight of the 1 10 Division One t titles on offer.
And with two swift blows in that huge derby contest – in the space of two decisive minutes – Rush swung the balance firmly back to Liverpool as they strode on to win the title again.
“It was a massive game, a really important and emotional one,” recalled Rush. “Hillsborough had happened only a few months earlier and it was still raw for everyone on Merseyside.
“We knew we had to do something to get football back for the people in the city.
“We were the two best teams in Europe for a lot of that decade, and really it was probably the biggest game in Europe at that time. “They went ahead but my two goals in such a short space of time demoralised them. It’s hard to come back when you concede like that.” Rush still holds the record for most goals in the Merseyside derby, with 25, and people forget that he scored them against one of the best teams in the world at the time. But that season was the swansong for both teams in the city.
Liverpool won the title but then had a 30-year wait for the next, while Everton eventually slipped to sixth and dropped out of the top echelons of the game.
Now though, with Carlo Ancelotti at the helm, the Toffees are back at the top of the table, and for the first time in a long time can go into tomorrow’s match confident of victory – which would be their first in this fixture for 10 years.
Rush believes the arrival on Merseyside of the Italian master has been a game- changer for his great rivals.
He predicted as much when the two met a couple of years ago for the Liverpool Legends game against AC Milan in front of a sell- out crowd at Anfield.
“Everton have done brilliantly to get such a topclass manager, but I wasn’t surprised,” said Rush.
“In the Legends game I talked to Ancelotti beforehand and he said he could not believe it was a sell-out.
“He said it was a proper football city and I’m sure he had that in his mind when Everton approached him.
“These top managers, they don’t go into clubs blind, they learn about the club and the passion there. That’s why he came.”
And Rush can see what a difference he has made.
“All the great teams have great managers,” he said. “We had them in the 80s, and Everton had Howard Kendall. Now it’s Jurgen Klopp and Ancelotti and they are both greats.
“If Everton win, Ancelotti knows he can use the momentum to keep his team up there. And after that defeat at Villa, Liverpool need answers too. It’s going to be some contest.”