“MERSEYSIDE IS BLUE,” wrote an excitable Abdoulaye Doucoure after Everton’s 2-0 derby win over Liverpool on Wednesday night.
“14 years… sorry for the wait,” posted Doucoure’s midfield partner Idrissa Gueye, a reference to the last time Everton won at Goodison against their local rivals.
Over a decade on, at long last they had put that unwanted record to bed.
The heroes on that occasion, another 2-0 win in October 2010, were current Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta and Tim Cahill, two stalwarts of the David Moyes era. This time, it was the prodigiously talented Jarrad Branthwaite and a rejuvenated Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who left the pitch in injury time to a standing ovation.
Such was their effort, they all did at the end.
At full time, taunting — “you’ve lost the league at Goodison Park” — quickly turned to celebration as players and supporters stayed behind to celebrate a famous win; one that took Everton eight points clear of relegation with just four games to play.
After a long, setback-laden season, they are almost over the line. The joy, the relief, was palpable.
Amadou Onana and Idrissa Gueye sang and danced to ‘Spirit of the Blues’ in front of a packed Gwladys Street; Jordan Pickford screamed “up the f******* Toffees” down a TV lens; a bare-chested Calvert-Lewin raised his arm aloft triumphantly in the direction of those housed in the Main Stand. There were hugs and there were high-fives.
Dyche’s side had earned their moment, reserving their best performance of the season for when it mattered most.
Even a week ago, such a result and performance would have been practically unthinkable.
Harsh words were exchanged between Dyche and his team both after the 6-0 capitulation against Chelsea last Monday and at Finch Farm in the build-up to Sunday’s win over Nottingham Forest, but the response since has been emphatic.
Everton ran over 10 kilometres more than Forest at the weekend in their 2-0 victory and delivered a similarly committed display three days later to win the derby by the same scoreline.
Everton’s Jordan Pickford bathes in the glory of a derby win (Naomi Baker/Getty Images)
“The last two games have been a real forceful reaction,” Dyche said. “Of course we care. The reaction has been fantastic.”
“When you look at that (Chelsea) game, it wasn’t good enough,” defender Branthwaite noted. “We all realised that.
“After Chelsea, it was about focusing on ourselves and doing the basics well. If you do the basics and work hard as a unit, you’re going to pick up results. That was his (Dyche’s) main message: get back to basics, run harder than the other team, win your battles and it’ll take care of itself.
“It was just about the standards we set from the start of the season, how we rectify that and bouncing back, which we have done. How we’ve reacted after such a bad result shows the mentality of the team.”
Everton bullied Liverpool. They raced out of the traps, forcing errors and harnessing the energy of the Goodison crowd. They dominated duels, both on the ground and in the air, winning 75 per cent in the opening half an hour. That total was the most in the league this season at that stage, and by a whopping nine per cent, a marker of their early supremacy.
There were signs, too, that Dyche had learned from the thrashing against Chelsea. This time they were more cautious off the ball, preferring to remain compact and wait for the right moment to apply pressure. Their usual 4-4-1-1 became more of a 4-5-1, with Doucoure dropping deeper into a flat midfield, while Idrissa Gueye often went man-to-man on Alexis Mac Allister in a bid to stifle Liverpool’s build up. The Senegalese has added steel and defensive nous since his return to the team against Forest, with Dyche’s side much the better for it.
Everton had only 23 per cent possession but thrived, once again, on set pieces. Both of their goals came via that avenue, with the overriding image of the game — and indeed the symbol of Everton’s dominance writ large — Calvert-Lewin’s towering over a flailing Van Dijk at the back post to head in at the Gwladys Street End.
It was reminiscent of the Calvert-Lewin of old, the one who had shone under Carlo Ancelotti and earned England recognition prior to his catalogue of injuries. When Everton needed an outlet on Wednesday, he provided one, winning headers and constantly troubling the Liverpool defence.
“I think it was won in the tactical delivery of the team,” Dyche said. ”The delivery (of the gameplan) was excellent. We know they have possession, they can hurt you in different ways. Jordan (Pickford) made a couple of big saves, they had one that cannoned off the post but the level of the performance was top drawer. I want to play beautiful football but I want to play winning football first.
“Ten days ago people told me I don’t know what I am doing, now they tell me I do. Internally I enjoy it but this one is for the club and fans.
“Dom was first class. I said to him afterwards that that was the sort of performance where, if he can get that consistency, that is what gets you around that England team. The hold-up play, the controlled aggression, the commitment to get hold of the ball and fight for it but also his finishing. I loved Jarrad’s goal — he (Calvert-Lewin) is sprinting on the line to toe it in. I love that from strikers. You want them to be hungry to score goals. His header was fantastic.”
It felt like a giant leap forward, both for Dyche and his team, amid the Goodison din. the kind of feel-good result that the whole club has craved.
They did what others before them have failed to do — beat their local rivals on home turf.
Survival is now within touching distance.
That remains the main goal for a side that has spent the last three years close to the precipice.
But it is moments like these, nights like these when anything feels possible, that make you keep coming back.
(Top photo: Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)
