EVERTON 1 LIVERPOOL 2

The Merseyside Derby has as normal with a little help from man in black created enough controversy, to keep the banter going between the red and blue of the city until their next meeting and ensures that the fierce rivalry between these two old clubs will continue.

As always with football and even more so in tight derby battles luck has a part to play and both teams had the good and bad type today. Liverpool probably deserved to get the result as they created more chances and were handed a bombshell of bad luck when the usually so reliable Sami Hyypia skewed the ball into his own net, but Everton will feel let down by some very dubious decisions by the referee, Mark Clattenburg.
When Hibbert was sent off for fouling Gerrard for the first penalty it was clear that the referee was about to show the yellow card, even though i believe it deserved to be a red it was not good to see that a quick word from Gerrard could change the ref`s mind so easily and award a red, it had too much resemblance of the old days when it was a weekly event to see Roy Keane and his snarling Manchester United teammates bullying referee`s into submitting to their demands.
The Kuyt tackle could easily have been a red card and the Carragher pull down on Lescott in the dying moments would normally have resulted in a penalty. Everton fans will complain about the injustice like Liverpool did after the Chelsea debacle earlier in the season and both claims are valid but as everyone know`s luck has a major part to play in all sport and especially in the world of football, that lags behind the rest of sport by not introducing video technology that would solve nearly all of the injustices that happen every week in all the top leagues in Europe, so maybe we should not be blaming the refs, but instead ask why the overpaid people that run football do not actually do their jobs and bring technology into top flight football.

Benitez took one of the gambles of his Liverpool career by taking off Gerrard with 20 minutes to go, it paid off when Lucas took the decisive shot that Phil Neville saved with an outstretched arm with reactions that any goalkeeper in the world would be happy with, but if Liverpool had not won yesterdays game serious questions would once again be asked of Benitez`s team selection and substitutions. Yesterday Benitez started with Sissoko and Masherano in the middle and Gerrard on the wing and it was only when Gerrard in the second half started to play a more central role did he look anywhere near his best, and he actually for the first time in a long time was starting to have a major influence on the game even though his final ball and finishing were still miles away from what Liverpool fans have come to expect from their talisman.

The gamble paid off and maybe just maybe it may have the desired effect on Gerrard and as he said himself in his autobiography, he hates being taken off during a game and see`s it as a personal attack on himself, and this being the Merseyside Derby the feeling will have been ten-fold. Maybe this may shake him out of his current bad form because nothing else seems to be working, and despite all Liverpools big money big name signings, Liverpool still need an in-form Steven Gerrard to truly compete for that ever elusive Premiership crown.
Fair play to Benitez after the game he could easily have said that he took Gerrard off to rest him for the midweek game, but his honest answer was directed as much at Gerrard as it was to the media, he said "In this game, sometimes you need to play with the brain and we were playing with heart. We needed to keep the ball and pass the ball." which he was in no doubt referring to Gerrard, and now we must just wait and see how the Liverpool captain reacts to this new pressure from his manager.

As for the Liverpool display as a whole it is still nowhere near the standards that are needed to bring the title back to Merseyside, but as in all Derbies, it is not a normal game and it is hard to judge a teams form on a derby performance because both sides are fired up, but the important thing for Liverpool is that they take this confidence from the win, build on it and pray that their captain is returning to form and that their manager has realised that there is such a thing as over-rotation and Liverpool should be playing their best team and let the weaker teams adjust to Liverpool`s style of play instead of vice-versa and then maybe just maybe we will start to see the best of this exciting bunch of players that Benitez has assembled.