Storm Darragh put paid to the Merseyside Derby but we wouldn’t let a silly thing like the game not happening stop us bringing you 16 Conclusions.
Our thanks go to ChatGPT for a fabricated match report of Everton 1-2 Liverpool to work with featuring a current Nottingham Forest player, the thoughts of a former Liverpool manager and some AI commentary from Peter Drury.
We wouldn’t say we live in fear for our livelihoods, but like in so many professions, AI is a lingering and growing concern. On-the-whistle match reports can literally be on the whistle and the further down the line we get the smarter the scary interweb robot will become.
We take solace in what we believe is a desire for people to read stuff an actual person has written. There’s something in picturing and then admiring or criticising a journalist. There’s no fun in calling ChatGPT a ‘chelsh*t pr*ck masquerading as a football journo’ (just one of our recent pieces of fan feedback) not least because AI is literally masquerading as a journalist.
Fair to say we’re feeling even better about our futures on the back of asking AI to generate a ‘match report for **Everton v Liverpool on December 7**‘, which among many puzzling points of interest features an equalising goal for Everton scored by a centre-back who left Goodison Park 18 months ago, assisted by a player who has never played for the club. Stupid robot.
To be fair, we did check whether Yerry Mina had ever scored for Everton against Liverpool because it feels like the sort of thing that could easily have happened. He hasn’t, but if we were to fabricate an Everton goal against Liverpool, or anyone for that matter, it would obviously be Big Defender Scores Header, though we would probably have gone for any of the four big defenders currently in the Everton squad over a guy we assume must have had his contract ripped up by Cagliari in the early hours of Saturday morning before a quick flight through Storm Darragh to John Lennon.
Though implausible, we can all see what’s gone wrong there. Mina at least used to play for Everton and has played for them against Liverpool. Not James Ward-Prowse though.
Now, before we all laugh at AI’s apparent inability to scour Premier League squads past and present to work out that Ward-Prowse a) plays for Nottingham Forest and b) has never played for Everton – how much longer does it need to work that out? Two more seconds? Dumb droid – we’ve also got to consider the worrying possibility that the human simulator is ahead of us all; predicting a future when Ward-Prowse is indeed on Everton set pieces. We can all see it happening.
‘The game lived up to its reputation as one of the most heated rivalries in English football’. Hmmm.
If the Merseyside Derby has a reputation it’s one of terrible football played by one distinctly mediocre football team against another that’s dragged down into mediocrity as soon as they set foot on the Goodison Park pitch.
Everton were ‘spirited’, ‘resolute’ and ‘compact’ in defeat, which sounds about right given they didn’t get pummelled and ‘looked dangerous on the break’, which is reasonable assuming those threats came courtesy of Dwight McNeil and Iliman Ndiaye.
Less reasonable for Neal Maupay to be the man bearing down on goal in a bid to give Everton an unlikely lead, chiefly because he plays for Marseille, but also because the thought of him being onside, in possession of the ball and between Virgil van Dijk and the opposition goal is impossible to compute for us non-computers.
Credit where credit’s due, nailed him hitting his shot straight at the goalkeeper.
A very bold call to have Darwin Nunez opening the scoring. We can only assume the ChatGPT tentacles didn’t reach F365’s worst finishers of the 2023/2024 season or believe Jamie Carragher’s opinion to be worthwhile. More of a Jamie O’Hara fan we’re guessing, based on the inaccuracies of this match report.
Even bolder to claim it was a header given he’s only scored twice with his bonce since the start of last season. ‘Too powerful for Jordan Pickford to handle’ apparently, at least suggesting it was straight at the goalkeeper, which is the second-most likely place for Nunez to direct his header after Off Target.
That opener came after 27 minutes and Everton’s response was swift as a result of what we can only assume was an entirely positive reaction to going behind from the ever-buoyant Goodison Park crowd.
The free-kick was ‘delivered perfectly into the box’ and the ‘central defender rose above everyone to head home’. No notes assuming we can all get past neither the goalscorer nor the creator playing for Everton.
‘Liverpool started the second half with renewed energy’ as they did against Newcastle and are wont to do in general as more of a second-half team.
Not a stretch at all for Mohamed Salah to have ‘hit a powerful shot off the woodwork after a quick break down the right’ as he’s done that in every single Liverpool game he’s played. At some point in the past no doubt having ‘taken advantage of a Ben Godfrey mistake’, though that could only be a valid point here if they’re either referencing his sale to Atalanta in the summer as the error or claiming current Everton right-back Vitaly Mykolenko is somehow the former Everton right-back’s lovechild. We prefer surprise rather than mistake in any case.
We don’t want to overly disparage the fine work of ChatGPT but we suspect a monkey with a typewriter could have come up with the goal Salah scored.
‘Picking up the ball on the right wing, Salah cut inside past two Everton defenders and drilled a low shot into the bottom corner, leaving Pickford no chance.’
More likely a left-footed curler into the top corner perhaps, but otherwise, that is The Mohamed Salah Goal.
Want to know an AI-generated Peter Drury’s take on the goal? Of course you do.
“He silences the Goodison Park faithful with an absolute stunner, and Liverpool take the lead! This man, this Egyptian King, continues to write his own legend in the Premier League!”
Bound to call him the ‘Egyptian King’ and we can only assume he went on to reference the similarities in physique to Amenhotep III or linking his goalscoring record to the atrocities of Rameses XI.
Everton then ‘ramped up the pressure’ thanks in large part due Dominic Calvert-Lewin coming off the bench. No problem with that as we assume the Get It Launched tactics increased as they took advantage of his ‘added height and physicality’.
That presumably means Beto was handed just his second start of the season, or – just as likely – Nikica Jelavic his first in a decade or Dixie Dean an unlikely appearance from beyond the grave.
Huge props to the cyborg for including an inevitable controversial late call in LiVARpool’s favour.
‘In the dying minutes, Everton thought they had equalized after a scramble in the box, but after a VAR review, the goal was ruled out for offside, and the frustration in the stands was palpable.’
Sean Dyche claimed they were “unlucky” after the game after an Everton player was probably deemed to be Interfering With Play when doing nothing of the sort or some other example of extraordinary good fortune for Liverpool, ahead of Van Dijk punching McNeil in the face and receiving no retribution.
“It was a tough game, as expected in a Merseyside Derby. Everton played well, and they made it hard for us. But we showed great character to get the win, and I’m pleased with the performance, especially from Salah. It was a big three points for us.”
Interviewing Jurgen Klopp after a win for Arne Slot’s Liverpool is an interesting move but not all that weird a decision from a broadcaster who employed a Britpop singer to commentate on a Manchester City game.
Bit of a balls up right at the end where it’s claimed ‘Liverpool climbed the table’ thanks to the three points, though we’re huge fans of the Android picking out Arsenal fans to troll having presumably learned in less than a second how easy it is to wind them up online.
No mention of any other team aside from the two playing before it’s pointed out that the result means ‘Liverpool leapfrog Arsenal’. A wonderfully petty addition directed at the ideal target. Bravo, machine.
We leave you with the final thoughts of Peter Drury.
“The Reds march away victorious once again, taking all the spoils from their fiercest of rivals. Liverpool 2, Everton 1. It’s another chapter in this historic Merseyside derby – and what a story it tells! This is a crucial three points for Liverpool. And for Everton, well… it’s another bitter blow. But that’s the nature of this fixture: the passion, the pride, the power. And today, it’s Liverpool who rule the roost!”
No mention at all of this being the final Merseyside Derby at Goodison Park, which we can confidently say would have been referenced at least once every other sentence by the actual Peter Drury. “A stadium steeped in history, the Grand Old Lady of English football” etc etc.