Liverpool 0 Everton 0:Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr touch down on Merseyside today and, given the bitter aftertaste left by the 205th local spat, Liverpool will be glad to have the sweetener of a £470 million takeover to look forward to. Any faint hopes of mounting a belated title challenge evaporated amid livid frustration here, and it says everything about the hosts' spluttering display that the closest they came to unnerving Everton was through Rafael Benitez's incendiary accusation that the neighbours were "a small club".
The repercussions of that mischievous comment still smoulder today, the city split as furiously as when David Moyes dared to tag Everton "The Peoples' Club" on his arrival five years ago. The tone expressed by Evertonians on phone-ins and, indeed, across the city has been one of outrage, that the Spaniard's remarks were at best misguided and, at worst, disgraceful.
Benitez is canny enough to realise the weight his words carry and, when put in that context, his comments appeared nothing but inflammatory, even if the spark of debate was appreciated after the mishmash served up on the pitch.
It takes very little to whip fans into a frenzy, and the visitors' reaction was predictable. Chief executive Keith Wyness claimed Benitez was "in a minority of one in believing Everton is, in any respect, a small football club".
Alan Stubbs, outstanding in a game he so often relishes, was as forthright. "You're going to be bitter when you've not had a result," he said. "You can always turn round and say you're misquoted or whatever but, at the end of the day, you know what you're talking about."
There is a disingenuousness to Benitez that does him no credit. His criticism of Everton had been that they came to Anfield intent upon securing a point, "playing deep, compact, narrow, on the counter-attack, always hoping we would make a mistake".
Yet these are tactics the Spaniard has employed when visiting Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge and Highbury, and presumably a game-plan he will replicate at the Nou Camp in the Champions League later this month.
What was inescapable was the manner in which Benitez's team ran aground against an Everton side who played precisely as the hosts had anticipated. Pummelling long balls up to Peter Crouch when Stubbs and Joseph Yobo were so comfortable in the air was a Liverpool failing, the inability of Jermaine Pennant to skip beyond Lescott indicative of their lack of penetration.
Everton departed apparently peering from the moral high ground. "Everton are one of the big clubs in England," said Moyes. "We are, at this present time, smaller than Liverpool but, if Rafa had been managing Everton, I think he'd have tried to do a similar job today. It would just be nice for these managers to show a bit of humility, wouldn't it?"
Guardian Service
