Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 1 Everton 0 in the 2024-2025 Premier League season…
TWELVE clear, 24 left to be won.
It was a battle, a scrap and it was dreadfully officiated.
Christ, that was stressful. Christ, that was good. Good god, did we need that. As You’ll Never Walk Alone belted out at Anfield, we needed to win this game against Everton.
Curtis Jones is beaming like a Cheshire cat at the end. He peels off the pitch to a bear hug from Trent Alexander-Arnold and the two Liverpool men look collectively very pleased with themselves. The fight. The fight was there. The fight was back.
Everton are not dreadful. They find the back of the net from an offside position (it was) and hit the post in the first half. Their plan is to defend brutally and give the ball the big boot to the tall men upfront. It’s not a bad plan.
Worse plans exist and always have. They are a throwback, but you can be alright about that. That the refereeing is a throwback you can be less alright about.
We won. Let’s be clear. We won. The points and rewards are ours. We have beaten Everton, sent them home to County Road with hard-luck stories. This is our duty and it is done. So:
The refereeing is making the games exceptionally hard at Anfield. You spend 90 minutes watching your players be dragged, pulled and, today, battered. All you want isn’t for the opposition to stop, but for the referee to step in. And it just doesn’t happen.
It should be a worse plan to try to break Alexis Mac Allister’s leg. It should be a worse plan to foul, and foul, and foul in the hope that in the Anfield bear pit the referee will say play on (he does).
And then a Liverpool player leans the wrong way and the referee blows.
Today, there was definitely a point where the ref decided Everton were allowed to do things Liverpool were not allowed to do. It was third round FA Cup refereeing and it has to stop. It is genuinely burning heads out in the ground.
Today, Tarkowski and Beto do enough to be sent off, but the rules don’t apply to them. The rules apply differently to Liverpool at Anfield. The usual rules of home advantage are inverted. Referees come to Anfield determined not to be intimidated to the point they make the wrong point.
Making that decision is a bad plan and it has to stop.
Everton’s plan really falls over when it comes to Liverpool upfront. We score one goal in this match, but we look like we have options. Specifically, Everton decide to try to overload Mohamed Salah on the right, seemingly unaware that they have left a wide green yonder for Luis Diaz to roam about in on the left.
The number of times Diaz shouts for – screams for – the ball, gets a pass, holds it, twists it, finds a man, receives it back. It is joyful.
Diaz was tremendous. So too was Jones. It should be that he was vulnerable. Instead he was indefatigable. He showed, and battled, and was ultimately man of the whole match.
Diogo Jota won the moment. He had been frustrating first half beyond belief and then there he is; squat and shifting from right to left and then suddenly certain, suddenly irresistible, suddenly sudden and suddenly all hell breaks loose.
Because you know that this league title is bending our way, and you know that the city belongs to us, and the whole country does too. You know that this is the undisputed and indisputable most successful side in England and you know that what we do and who we are is global. Global. Suddenly the world is ours and you know it.
I have been struck repeatedly today about the importance of “we”. We is everyone who wants to be it. Everyone who wants to be part of it. Everyone who works towards it. Everyone who puts in the hard yards. We look outwards so we can make what is inside work. This is our superpower and I love us at our most super.
I love suddenly feeling like we are the best ones. In a way, I wish I could find neater, purer, more metaphoric or allegoric language around it, but ultimately fuck that. Fuck it. I want the us to be enormous and I want you in it wholeheartedly. Sometimes you just write the sentence you want to write.
Virgil van Dijk won the second half. The captain’s shoulders are broad enough to carry us all to the promised land. God. The Promised Land. His place. Van Dijk spent the second half guiding everything home. It was an immense performance of leadership along with simply being dominant where the football was concerned.
I would follow him to the very jaws of hell. I would step into them alongside him. But thankfully we don’t need to do that because instead we have the Promised Land.
The match – Curtis. The half – Van Dijk. The moment – Jota. But everything else was ours. A ground yet again inflamed, and often pensive, and then urgent, and finally celebratory, finally about that journey that we shall not shift from.
Twelve clear and 24 to be won. Everything you ever wanted just within our grasp.
God has given us these days of leisure. And we made this city. We made this city. The city is built on joy and resilience and no one is more joyous or resilient than us. This year we have decided. And then we get the summer, sitting in trees, smiling at passers-by.
Nearly there. Trust the captain. Nearly there.
Promise.
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Why bring god into this? As if hyperbole were not only unjust, but warranted, yet there’s no need to raise the supernatural. We are a powerful force of nature without invoking the spaghetti monster who powers the light in the fridge. Otherwise: brilliant stuff.