Goodison Park’s final Merseyside league derby was meant to have taken place last Saturday, but Storm Darragh had other ideas.
It gave Liverpool an unexpected six-day breather between their away matches against Newcastle and Girona, while Everton will have had more than a week off by the time they face Arsenal in north London this coming weekend.
An official rescheduling is still contingent on the Reds’ ongoing involvement in domestic cups and the Champions League, but a provisional date has reportedly been set.
Merseyside derby likely to be rescheduled for February
As per The Mirror, the Merseyside derby is to be rescheduled for Tuesday 11 February, with the two clubs in discussions with the Premier League, police and broadcasters over the fixture’s rearrangement.
The rules of the English top flight state that matches which are postponed should be refixed for the next midweek date which is available, which is unlikely to be in January unless Liverpool are knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Southampton next week.
The Merseyside derby at Goodison Park is set to be rescheduled for 11 February
(Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Merseyside derby could form part of busy February for Liverpool
As the proposed reschedule date coincides with the knockout round play-offs for the Champions League, the Premier League would need to get the green light from UEFA before it’s set in stone, but that isn’t expected to be a problem.
If the Reds can avoid a cup upset at St Mary’s next Wednesday, they should be able to pencil in 11 February for the rescheduled Merseyside derby.
Liverpool aren’t mathematically certain to avoid the knockout round play-offs in the Champions League, but with a six-point gap to ninth place with only two matchdays remaining, it’d take a freakish combination of results not to go straight into the last 16.
At present, LFC’s fixture calendar has a 15-day gap in February between the Premier League games against Bournemouth (1st) and Wolves (16th), but there’s a strong chance that three more matches in three different competitions will be added in the meantime.
The second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-finals is on the first midweek of the month, with the fourth round of the FA Cup (we’re at home to League Two side Accrington Stanley in round three) on the weekend of 8/9 February and then – as now seems likely – the Merseyside derby at Goodison Park.
That could be yet another busy month for the Reds, but we’d much rather get the Everton game out of the way at the earliest opportunity rather than having it crowbarred into the final weeks of the season, especially when springtime games may need to be moved depending on our progress in cup competitions.