The shouts of “disgrace” at the final whistle seemed to be directed more at Graham Poll, the ever-bashful referee, than at the Everton players, but David Moyes, the manager, said that Neville and Arteta had been “stupid” and should have known better. He admitted that the red cards were symptoms of the result rather than causes, with Liverpool racing into a 2-0 lead within 18 minutes through Peter Crouch and Steven Gerrard.
Djibril Cissé reasserted their superiority early in the second half after James Beattie gave Everton a glimmer of hope.
They say that the form book goes out of the window on derby day, but it never seemed likely to do so here. This was Liverpool’s ninth consecutive Premiership victory and Everton’s fifth successive defeat. It was followed at the final whistle by a love-in between the victorious visiting players and supporters in the Bullens Road Stand, though it said much about Liverpool’s pursuit of perfection under Rafael Benítez that Jamie Carragher left the pitch bemoaning the goal they had conceded to Beattie, having kept clean sheets in the previous eight league matches.
With Gerrard and Mohamed Sissoko immense in midfield, the latter giving Moyes an unwanted reminder of the talent he missed out on in July when the youngster chose Liverpool over Everton, the gulf in class was almost as wide as the Mersey. Moyes may have been happy that his team at least threatened to make a game of it, having been overwhelmed early on, but at times it seemed as if Liverpool were showing compassion to their downtrodden neighbours, resisting the temptation to twist the knife and preferring to conserve their energies for the battles ahead.
It was the dynamism of Sissoko and Gerrard that engineered the breakthrough for Liverpool in the eleventh minute. A quick kick forward by José Manuel Reina seemed to have been cleared by David Weir, but, as Everton’s players hesitated, Sissoko seized on the second ball and drove the play forward.
In the blink of an eye the ball was switched from Cissé to Gerrard to Crouch, who showed remarkable poise to waltz around Nigel Martyn and stroke the ball into the unguarded net. For the sixth time in as many matches he celebrated; this time the dubious goals committee will not be needed.
Seven minutes later it was 2-0 and again it was all about reaction speed, Liverpool pouncing while Everton slept after Xabi Alonso’s free kick was punched away by Martyn. Alonso spread the play wide via Sami Hyypia to Steve Finnan and, when the full back’s cross was again only half-cleared, by Tim Cahill, the Everton defenders stood off Gerrard, who took one touch to steady himself before shooting through a crowd and past the unsighted Martyn. Game over, or so it seemed.
Everton, though, would not lie down just yet. They were unfortunate to be denied a foothold in the 38th minute when Beattie headed into the net, only for the linesman to rule that the ball had gone over the line before it was crossed from the right by Cahill. Moyes brought to mind John McEnroe when he argued afterwards that “the ball was in”, but television replays suggested that the manager was right.
Irrespective of Liverpool’s superior quality, it might have been a very different story had that goal been given, particularly as Beattie found the net for a second time four minutes later, this time to the satisfaction of Mr Poll and his assistants.
Again the goal stemmed from the right wing, a deep cross from Arteta, but it took a towering header from Kevin Kilbane and a clever overhead kick from Simon Davies to transfer the ball to Beattie, whose glancing header from six yards was the first goal Liverpool had conceded in more than nine Premiership matches — 12 hours and 42 minutes, to be precise.
If Moyes was dreaming of an equaliser when the half-time whistle blew, though, hope was extinguished within 60 seconds of the restart as Everton were caught on the counter-attack. Cissé chased Harry Kewell’s clearance down the left wing, drifted inside the unconvincing challenge of Weir and stroked the ball adroitly past Martyn into the far corner.
Never the kind of team to pursue four goals when three will do, Liverpool treated it as a practice game thereafter, but, for their supporters, there was more mirth to follow as first Neville, in the 68th minute, and then Arteta, in stoppage time, chalked up two yellow cards in quick succession.
Arteta’s offences, on Hyypia and Luis García, seemed particularly trivial; Everton’s predicament at the bottom end of the table is anything but.