Diving, Snarling, Fouling Toffees Routed in Empty Stadium
Everton 1 Liverpool 4
Rafa Benítez will always be one of my favourite Liverpool managers. Hell, he may even be my favourite Everton manager. But it was a mistake for him to go there, and while he’s there I can’t wish him too much good fortune, especially alongside Duncan Ferguson. It just feels wrong.
Rafa’s Liverpool team was great; this Liverpool team is taking everything to a totally new level. Two or more goals (in this case four, and on various occasions five) were scored for the 18th game in a row, as records continue to tumble; that’s nine goals scored in the two away “derbies” this season, if you term the Man United match that way.
Right now, Liverpool are emptying opposition stadiums faster than a rogue bomb hoax. At Old Trafford it was half-time. At Goodison it took about a quarter of an hour.
Everton, channeling their inner dogs of war, threw more into tackles, as their players constantly left the ground (a bit like their fans), and dived on three separate occasions.
Also on TTT this week for subscribers, Mizgan Masani’s scouting report on Porto’s Luis Diaz:
Here’s a brief excerpt:
Diaz is a left-winger/wide left-sided midfielder by trade, with a stronger right foot to cut inside from the left-hand side and be a menace for opposition defenders. Since joining Porto in the summer of 2019 from Colombian side Junior FC, the 24-year-old has played 116 games in all competitions – scoring 37 goals and assisting 16. He has played 31 times for the Colombian national team, scoring seven goals. He has played 12 of the 14 World Cup qualifiers, scoring twice in a team that itself is running at a goal per game.
In terms of his playing attributes – mainly on the ball – Diaz loves to travel with it, make progressions into the final third and create openings for the team or score some goals. He is good at dribbling past people, having lots of shots on goal and always keeping the opposition back-line on the toes. His end product can sometimes be awry, something which we saw in both the games he played versus Liverpool and other Champions League games this season. Yet he remained an ever-present threat all game long.
The dribbling output in the past year has been good from the winger, with 15 goals coming after a sequence of events that started or finished by him dribbling past a player or group of players. After a dribble, he has kept possession for 74.6% of time in this period, which is pretty impressive.
It won’t be easy finding players of the calibre of Salah, Mané, et al, but the Reds have done it again with Diogo Jota. Thankfully, rather than slowing down, Salah and Mané are scoring more freely than ever. And Liverpool aren’t even scoring ordinary goals: right now, it’s special goal after special goal.
