In a season full of relative lows, the Merseyside Derby has brought respite for Liverpool. Now we’ll always have the Hill Dickinson…
IT doesn’t solve anything, it doesn’t excuse anything and it certainly doesn’t justify an appalling season.
But who among us doesn’t enjoy a holiday, particularly when Everton are paying and they’ve bought a really nice place to host the opening night.
There’s a myth around the Derby. I’m old enough to remember the unbridled joy of Everton 0 Liverpool 5 in 1982 and was lucky enough to be there for Liverpool 5 Everton 2 in 2019, a game in which my mate, Simon, confidently told me afterwards that the league title was done. It was only the 4th of December and, madly, he was right.
Everyone loves a Derby tonking – of course they do – but a daylight robbery last minute 0-1 adds an extra frisson. They’d say the same.
This was an outrage, a travesty. They had all the high cards while we had the smallest front three in Liverpool history, a goalkeeper I could have had a night out with and not recognised, and an inability to get the ball past their midfield.
They knocked and knocked while inexplicably not bothering to have a go at the new lad with the gloves, and also took every spare ball that was going. We stood up but achieved little else. Then theatre took over, pure theatre, and for once it was in our favour.
Hold it to your soul.
It doesn’t solve anything, it doesn’t excuse anything and it certainly doesn’t justify an appalling season. It’s important to remember that.
But if there’s one thing we needed this week it was a last-minute Derby winner and a good shout at the world. Then the players came over for a song and a laugh. It crowned the day.
The bit afterwards with Andy Robertson and Mo Salah? More of that, please. There hasn’t been anything like enough of that lately. Everyone in a good mood and enjoying both it and each other. It was a reminder of a time when this was a regular occurrence. As far back as last April.
And, yes, there are issues. Isak isn’t fit, no Hugo, not knowing who the new goalie’s understudy is, not knowing who the right-back will be for Palace – but this was a night out after the hardest of weeks when someone has stuck a decent wedge behind the bar. We needed to let off steam and just remember the joy of the thing.
And, yes, the game was the undercard to the main game of the weekend — a game we’d much rather be involved in given the relative league positions — but we have to take our pleasures where we find them this season. How nice was it to find one here?
This game can still surprise you. This team, stupefyingly bad at times, can give you glimpses of what can be achieved and though we’re nowhere near the highs of where we should be, we’ll always have the Hill Dickinson derby. It would be ‘the Virgil derby’ but he’s already got one of those.
It’s nice to go to bed with a smile rather than a snarl. Yes, it’s only one game and we weren’t great (though I’d say Curtis and Cody were) but we’ll grab days like this in such barren times.
A smile here. A welcome smile.
