National media round-up of Everton's 1-0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield
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LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - APRIL 2: Diogo Jota of Liverpool scores the opening goal during the Premier League match between Liverpool FC and Everton FC at Anfield on April 2, 2025 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
Diogo Jota fires in Liverpool's controversial winner against Everton at Anfield last night
(Image: Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
Refereeing decisions were again a major talking point following a Merseyside Derby. Everton captain James Tarkowski stayed on after his challenge on Alexis Mac Allister and Liverpool's winner, scored by Diogo Jota, was allowed to stand despite Luis Diaz being offside in the build-up.
And here is a round-up of how the national media reported the Blues' 1-0 defeat at Anfield.
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Andy Hunter, writing in the Guardian, said: "David Moyes felt the strike that ended Everton’s nine-match unbeaten run should have been disallowed with Luis Diaz offside in the build-up. He also conceded that James Tarkowski, Everton’s late hero when the local rivals met 49 days ago, was lucky not to see red with only 11 minutes on the clock. The customary Merseyside derby controversy.
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"Of more importance to Liverpool on this emotional occasion were the cold, hard facts of victory. It leaves Slot’s team needing a maximum of 13 points from the remaining eight games to have the Premier League trophy on display at Anfield once again, and to seal a record-equalling 20th league championship. Their performance against an obstinate and dangerous Everton side was hardly enthralling but underpinned by an impressive determination to recover from a painful Champions League exit and deserved Carabao Cup final defeat before the international break.
"A fixture that finished with a multitude of flashpoints last time around soon offered up another. Tarkowski was fortunate in the extreme not to be sent off and leave his team in a serious hole at Anfield with the contest in its infancy.
"For all their dominance of the ball and composure, Liverpool created few clear-cut openings before the interval. The visitors fashioned the better first-half openings against a Liverpool central defence that was unusually vulnerable to quick, direct balls in behind.
"Everton’s misses, as Moyes must have known and feared, proved costly. Liverpool started the second half with renewed intent and aggression. Ryan Gravenberch began to exert more influence in central midfield and the pressure was mounting, the Kop expectant, before Jota finally produced an end product.
"Diaz was clearly offside when Gravenberch attempted to dissect the Everton defence. Crucially, according to the letter of a law that Slot professed to hate, the winger made no clear attempt to play the ball. Tarkowski was not to know that and made a weak interception. Diaz, back in an onside position, teed up Jota with a cute back-heel. The Portugal international swept past Idrissa Gueye into the box and away from Tarkowski before completing his run with a characteristically cool, measured shot beyond Pickford.
"Everton’s appeals for an offside against Diaz in the build-up were in vain. Their attempts to turn the tide of the derby or at least challenge Liverpool’s authority proved similarly fruitless."
Ian Ladyman, in the Daily Mail, writes: "The good news for Liverpool is that this may be as hard as it gets. The only team wishing to deny them as badly as Everton between now and the end of the season will be Arsenal and by the time they visit Anfield on May 10, this title race may be all but over.
"This was difficult for Liverpool. It really was desperately difficult. Emotional, tense and occasionally petty, everything that a derby usually is but at the same time everything a team chasing only its second league title in 35 years doesn’t need a game to be.
"Deep into injury-time - at around about the time Everton and James Tarkowski got them at Goodison Park in mid-February - the nerves that had threatened to derail Liverpool in the first half were back. They were giving the ball away needlessly and inviting pressure.
"At the death Everton won a corner. Goalkeeper Jordan Pickford advanced and Anfield inhaled. It came to nothing and Anfield exhaled. And a minute later it was over. A major obstacle overcome, a big step taken.
"As it is, they will feel they have passed a real test and the truth is that they Liverpool deserved this victory. Everton did their damndest to deny them.
"Tarkowski, their captain, should have been sent off early on but wasn’t and then, with Virgil van Dijk asleep on the half hour, visiting striker Beto struck a post.
"The game was anyone’s at that point. It was scrappy and directionless. So at times were Liverpool. But the crucial part is that they settled down. They played their football. They got better. And then they scored a really quite super goal to win the game."
Andy Dunn, in the Mirror, wrote: "In Grand National week on Merseyside, Diogo Jota made sure there will be no Devon Loch-style collapse in the title race. After their disappointments in the Champions League and Carabao Cup final, there were very faint suggestions that Arne Slot’s side might falter dramatically in the Premier League run-in, but crossing the winning line is now a formality.
"Just as it is a formality that this Everton manager does not win at Anfield, Jota’s moment of brilliance in a mediocre game making it 22 matches without a victory at the home of the champions-elect for David Moyes. Liverpool were far from their best but it is now just a question of keeping their concentration and getting the job done as efficiently as possible so that they can start the party.
"And on this night, not only were they celebrating another derby win at Anfield, they were celebrating the fact that one of their players escaped serious injury. Strangely enough, the first 10 minutes or so had, by derby standards, been distinctly amicable but then a ricochet found its way into a small patch of land midway between James Tarkowski and Alexis Mac Allister.
"Old-fashioned types would refer to it as a hospital ball and let’s just say Tarkowski is, er, an old-fashioned type. And let’s just be thankful Mac Allister did not end up in hospital after Tarkowski cleaned out the ball then the man with a thunderously violent tackle.
"Referee Sam Barrott brandished yellow but an upgrade from VAR Paul Tierney seemed inevitable and Everton and Tarkowski were very fortunate it didn’t arrive. Quite what Tierney was thinking is anyone’s guess. All you need to know is that Duncan Ferguson had it down as a nailed-on red. Enough said."
Jason Burt, writing in The Telegraph, said: "As expected no quarter was given and that tone was set with a violent tackle by James Tarkowski with the Everton captain somehow escaping dismissal early in the first half in a meeting that is so often pocked by sendings-off.
"There were four the last time these two sides met, in that tumultuous 2-2 draw at Goodison Park in February, when Tarkowski scored the late – and again controversial – equaliser including one for Liverpool head coach Arne Slot. There should have been another, here, with Tarkowski’s ugly lunge at Alexis Mac Allister.
"It was full of force and malice and the centre-half knew exactly what he was doing. He had both feet off the ground and he made sure he hit Mac Allister. And hit him hard. Some might argue it was full-blooded, he won the ball and it is what we want in a contact sport. Nonsense. The still image of Tarkowski’s face said it all. Deemed reckless? That was ridiculous.
"Tarkowski remained on the pitch and so there was the second, significant controversy involving him. It surrounded the goal with Everton vehemently arguing that Luis Diaz was offside.
"The scorer was Diogo Jota and it came after the kind of wave after wave of attack, quickly recycling the ball, that has been Liverpool’s hallmark at home over the decades. The momentum felt unstoppable and so it proved.
"But the goal and why it was given deserves analysis. Replays showed that Diaz was, indeed, too far forward when an attempt was made by Ryan Gravenberch to play the ball through to him inside the Everton penalty area.
"Tarkowski cut it out, Diaz was close to him, ran around to cleverly backheel into Jota’s path and he slalomed through to beat Pickford for his first goal in 11 appearances. It was all the more timely and all the more necessary as this was a game in which Mohamed Salah had strangely little impact and did not take the one opportunity - a header - that came his way.
"The law? The question is: was Diaz “interfering with an opponent”? Well, he did not stop Tarkowski playing the ball, he did not obstruct his line of vision, he did not challenge him. But did he impact on Tarkowski’s ability to intercept? The argument from Everton was their player would not have tried to intervene unless Diaz was there. Otherwise he would have let the ball go.
"Maybe things could have been different had Beto taken his chance when it was goalless. The striker was giving Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate a difficult time and there looked like a moment of panic from the usually unflappable Liverpool captain when he produced an airshot. Beto capitalised and ran clear only for his shot to strike the post. He had to score but did not. It felt like another big moment."
And our own Joe Thomas in the Liverpool ECHO wrote: "The celebrations when Diogo Jota scored told the story. A stadium wracked with anxiety burst into emotion when the breakthrough came. It was hard to take for Everton - not least because there were legitimate questions about whether the offside Luis Diaz was interfering with play in the build up.
But it was also tough to stomach because once again Everton pushed their cross-city rivals to the limit. David Moyes was right when, on the eve of this game, he said the gulf between his side and Liverpool had never been greater. Yet once again his Blues have pushed this Liverpool team to the edge.
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That was why the celebrations were so intense. Liverpool and their supporters may not want to admit it, but one of Everton’s worst sides has been a nightmare for one of their greatest. And do not for one second think the red half of the city is serious when it claims this is a game of diminishing importance. Again, the celebrations showed the truth.