Liverpool was abuzz on Saturday when the Red men of Liverpool Football Club took the short trip from Anfield to Goodison Park, to face cross town rivals Everton. Everton defender Jack Rodwell was controversially sent off after 22 minutes, leaving the Toffee’s to play with 10 men for the next 68 minutes.
The tackle in question, in actuality, hardly even deserved to be deemed a foul, or at the very least, wasn’t even worth a yellow-card. He very cleanly won the ball from Liverpool striker Luis Suarez, while still sending him to the ground, and Martin Atkinson was quick to hand down a red-card.
Following that incident, Liverpool dominated much of the remainder of the game. In the 42nd minute, Luis Suarez won Liverpool a penalty, which Everton keeper, and USA international, Tim Howard saved. Dirk Kuyt was the penalty taker, and astonishingly missed, having scored on every penalty he had ever taken. Shortly thereafter, center midfielder Charlie Adam hit the cross bar with a tremendous left-footed shot, which wrapped up the first half of play.
Even though Liverpool had their chances, it was still 0-0.
After half time, Liverpool continued their dominance in the game. With 25 minutes left in the game the Reds introduced Craig Bellamy into the game, whose pace opened up much needed space behind Everton.
On 71 minutes, a cross from former Newcastle defender, Jose Enrique, landed for Andy Carroll, who scored his first goal of the season. After being much maligned by Liverpool fans, being labeled as a waste of money, he will be remembered for scoring against Everton.
After 82 minutes, Luis Suarez also scored to sink the Toffee’s even farther.
The Merseyside derby wasn’t the only major derby of the weekend. In North London, Arsenal was travelling to White Hart Lane to take on Tottenham, revisiting their contentious rivalry.
Tottenham striker, Emmanuel Adebayor, has had experience in this derby, though the last time was from the point of view of an Arsenal player. Arsenal fans voiced their displeasure with him having chosen to play for the bitter rivals by booing his every touch, while also singing some beyond awful chants. Chief among those chants were “It should have been you, it should have been you, Shot in Angola. It should have been you.” It is awful chants like that that have no place in the game, and also wrongfully mar an entire fan base because of the wrong actions, or in this case, words of few.
There was still a game to play. Tottenham opened the scoring when a cross-field pass from Adebayor found the Dutchman Rafael Van der Vaart, who controlled the ball with his chest, and volleyed past the Arsenal keeper to score. Replays suggest, however, that he may have been guilty of handling the ball.
Aaron Ramsey answered for Arsenal after half-time, but Tottenham would end up as winners after a sensational goal from 21-year old defender Kyle Walker found the back of the net.
It was definitely an excellent weekend of derbies leading, in northern, as well as southern England. But there are more to come, with Liverpool hosting Manchester United in two weeks time, in the North-West Derby.
Jeffrey Okerman can be reached for comment at [email protected]
