Of 34 The form book used to go out of the window in Merseyside derbies... now it’s more like the demolition derby
Everton have won
25 one of the last derbies. And since
(for I left Liverpool the second time) in 2007, they’ve
won three
GIVEN the increasingly important role of analytics in football, I thought I’d give you some – frankly astonishing – stats from my career.
In the 11 seasons I was at Liverpool, we averaged out at a top-four finish every year, with a statistical position of 3.9th place.
Everton, on average, finished 14th... meaning that in my time at Anfield, we were roughly 10 places above them each season.
We never once finished below them in my career with the Reds.
In fact, the closest they came to us in all that time was within three places on a couple of occasions.
Which means we were the better team – by some distance – in all my games against them.
Yet, and this is where the astonishing bit comes in, our record in the time I was at the club in the first-team squad against Everton read: played 20, won 6, drew 8... and lost 6.
So we had an equal record against a side who finished 10 places below us.
Every season for 11 years.
And that shows you what people mean when they say the form book goes out of the window in derbies – especially the Merseyside derby.
Which my admittedly longwinded analysis demonstrates.
Except, of course, it doesn’t any more. Everton have won one of the last 25 derbies.
And since I left Liverpool ( for the second time) in 2007, they’ve won three of 34.
That leads me to two conclusions. One – the gap between the two clubs has never been bigger, even if in terms of the table, it’s currently only a little bit wider than it was in my time.
And, in fact, over the past decade that gap was closer than in the 1990s and 2000s.
Two – derbies have changed in football. Quite possibly forever. That can be the only explanation for the sea change, which has seen the form book not thrown out of the window, but upheld fairly religiously.
I’ve looked back at the red cards in the fixtures since my time, and I have a confession to make... in the Premier League era it was me who kicked it all off ! Well, David Unsworth actually. He wound me up and we were both sent off for fighting, though,
in truth, it wasn’t much of a punch I landed.
That was in 1997 and, in the 14 years that followed, there were a total of 20 red cards.
Yet, in the 11 years since Jack Rodwell was dismissed in 2011, there have been TWO.
Liverpool have had one player sent off in 16 years.
Why have the games gone far more to form and why are there so few red cards?
Well, pretty obviously, the two are connected.
I think, in part, it’s because the games are more tactical and technical. Get a player sent off and that makes competing virtually impossible, if not completely.
But it goes beyond that. You look at the probable squads for today and chances are there will be two local lads out of 40 players. That’s pretty astonishing, too, when you think about it.
I’m not saying the players don’t care as much, but I wonder if they are insulated a bit more from the emotion of it.
From the meaning of it?
Yes and no.
But the bottom line is there has never been a bigger gap in living memory. Well at least in my living memory. And perhaps
that is
the most pertinent stat of all going into this derby.
There shouldn’t be. Everton have spent far more, net, than Liverpool over the past five years.
In the summers of 2016 and 2017, they spent more on Gylfi Sigurdsson and Yannick Bolasie than Liverpool spent on Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah.
I’d actually go as far as to say that, had it been the other way around, Salah and Mane wouldn’t have been a success at Goodison, while the other two would have had a chance of making it at Anfield.
Why? Because they have an identity, a culture and a philosophy at Liverpool. And if they’ve got one at Everton, then it’s not evident to me.
You can’t have a clear identity and intelligent recruitment if you change managers and go in wildly divergent directions every season.
Everton have been a disaster under Farhad Moshiri and that has to change. They must stick with their choice as manager now, give Frank Lampard time – even if they go down.
It’s the only way to make the derby stats astonishing again.