Everton Up Against It In The Merseyside Derby

Everton travel to Anfield to face the Red side of Merseyside in what will be an extremely tough encounter for Moyes’ side.

Liverpool are currently top of the Premier League table, and although it is currently very early doors, Slot’s side seem unstoppable at the minute, especially within the dying minutes of the game. Every game Liverpool has played this season has been won by a goal past the 80th minute. Just recently, in midweek, the Reds hosted Spanish giants Atletico Madrid in matchweek one of the UEFA Champions League. After an exciting 2-2 draw, Liverpool had a corner. As it was whipped in by Hungarian midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai, Virgil van Dijk was on the end of it to head it home in front of the Kop, giving the Reds the victory.

A similar scenario occurred in the game before, in the Premier League, as Liverpool faced Burnley at Turf Moor. For the whole 90 minutes, the consistent pressure of Slot’s team was not enough to break down this stubborn Burnley back line. That was until the 85th minute, when French midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu received a second yellow card and was dismissed from the field of play. Then, 10 minutes later, when new signing in the summer Jeremie Frimpong had a long-range shot, the ball struck the arm of Hannibal Mejbri, gifting Liverpool an extremely late penalty, which was then converted by Salah, handing the Reds the three points.

Everton weren’t able to get the three points at home in the second outing at Hill Dickinson Stadium against Aston Villa, with the Blues arguably battering Unai Emery’s side but not having enough to convert one of the many chances across the afternoon. Everton’s 20 shots in comparison to Villa’s 2 really show which way the game should have gone; however, the Toffees’ ability to convert clear-cut chances was poor, as Everton had only one more shot on target than Aston Villa, who had 1. Liverpool don't seem to be having this issue, as their newest recruit, Alexander Isak, is in contention to make his Premier League debut.

Isak’s transfer saga was the one to watch this summer, as there were bids rejected, the player refused to play, and Newcastle manager Eddie Howe hoped they could resolve something. Eventually, however, Liverpool got their man on deadline day. The Swedish international has 64 goal contributions in 86 games in the Premier League. In the 24/25 campaign, Isak managed to grab 23 goals, which landed him second in the Golden Boot race across the season, just behind new teammate Mohammed Salah!

When Slot was asked whether Isak and Ekitike could work together as a front 2, the Dutch manager explained that “I consider, of course, because you consider many things, and it depends always on how well they are doing, so if both of them are in the best form of their life, you would even consider it more, playing them together. But it’s also clear that we have a certain structure, which has mainly been 4-3-3 [and] playing with three midfielders, but the amount of times we have, at the end phase of the game, played with two nines – that has happened quite a lot as well.” Adding that, in regard to Isak’s possible debut, “What I do know is that Alex did feel his body more maybe than ever before after the 60 minutes he played, so let’s see how he’s recovered today, and then we’re going to think about the line-up mainly today, and you will hear it then tomorrow.” Slot also revealed Curtis Jones is in contention to feature.

For the Toffees, David Moyes spoke in his pre-match press conference, stating that both Vitalii Mykolenko and Jarrad Branthwaite are “making progress, and we’ll see. We’ve got a couple of other knocks within the camp, but we’ll see how they are.” Furthermore, when asked if Moyes enjoys Merseyside Derbies, the Scotsman stated that “I think I’d be lying if I said yes. I think it’s much easier if you’re the team who has got the stronger squad. We’re up against it, so we have to go there and fight for everything we can. We’ve got to go there and be competitive and make sure we play. We’re showing signs of improving, and hopefully we can show that in the game.”

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Thank you for reading my pre-match article!