Gary Neville accused Liverpool of being ‘below-par’ in their 2-0 victory over Everton.
The hosts came out on top in the Merseyside Derby courtesy of a penalty from Mo Salah and a further effort to double the scoreline after Darwin Nunez selfishly dished up a high-percentage goalscoring opportunity for his Egyptian teammate in the dying stages of the clash.
“I actually thought Liverpool were below-par, they weren’t at their best,” the former Manchester United man spoke on his Sky Sports podcast (via the Echo).
“They were helped by the sending off, obviously. Ashley Young no doubt about that but I think they did well with 10 men.
“I think Konate was lucky. I left at 1-0. So, I saw the penalty with Michael Keane, then obviously Salah scored it. It’s a good result for Liverpool.
“I don’t think Everton will be too downbeat, there will be some positives came out of it, I’ve seen them play worse.”
The result briefly took Jurgen Klopp’s men to the summit of the league table prior to Manchester City’s 2-1 win over Brighton and Arsenal’s 2-2 draw with Chelsea.
Whilst we can absolutely accept that our shooting boots went missing for much of the proceedings, it seems a little unfair to suggest that we were ‘below-par’ in a game we dominated for the most part before and after Ashley Young’s dismissal.
Certainly, you might even argue that the Toffees man’s sending-off actually made life more difficult for us.
Either way, Neville might wish to take a quick gander at Sofascore’s attacking momentum graph first before commenting on a Liverpool performance in future.
Someone spot the blue!
#Ep94 of The Empire of the Kop Podcast: EOTK Insider with Neil Jones🎙️