First off, whoever thought that it was a good idea to have the Merseyside derby on a Monday night is stupid and doesn’t know a thing about football. Secondly, Liverpool didn’t deserve to win this one: Everton came with a plan, stuck to it and got the result they were looking for.

Which leads me to the final point, one that perhaps is clouded by a heavy fog of pessimism at the moment but hey, it’s my blog. For the past couple of week’s I’ve been getting the feeling that whatever momentum there was, Liverpool have lost it. Instead of building on the hammering of Newcastle we’ve progressively gotten worse. There’s no cohesion in Liverpool’s play and we rely far too much on individual flashes of brilliance.

I don’t know what the reason is for this but for sure Gerrard’s problems haven’t helped. Much less has Benitez himself, first with the untimely criticism of Alex Ferguson and then this week with his refusal of a new contract. The feeling is that Liverpool aren’t pressing the self destruct button as much as they are jabbing at it like a crazed monkey.

Good Game
Three good saves and no fault with his goal, this was another good game for Pepe Reina. There have been rumours that Sami Hyppia is getting an extention to his contract and, if so he fully deserves it. He was impeccable once again against Everton as was Martin Skrtel who has quickly gotten over his injury. So too Fabio Aurelio who did his job diligently if unspectacularly.

In midfield, I though that Steven Gerrard actually had a rather quite game but then he goes on to score a great goal. Indeed, apart from that goal he was completely overshadowed by Xabi Alonso who kept the ball moving despite constantly having the nearest Everton player trying to hack him down. My man of the match.

Praise goes as well to Albert Riera who yet again failed to finish a game but, in my opinion, he was very good today where he was perhaps Liverpool’s best creative outlet. Even so, his understanding with Fernando Torres isn’t up to scratch as yet. Just as Torres’ finish in that glorious opportunity in the first half wasn’t even close to being good enough by his standards. Despite that miss, however, he had a good game and did his best to unsettle the Everton defence.

Bad Game
Let’s make this clear: I absolutely adore Jamie Carragher. That he’s not a right back is, I think, a well known fact by now. But at least normally he can be relied upon to carry out his defensive duties well. He failed to do that on this occasion making both Piennaar and Anichebe look far too good. Had he been doing his job, Benayoun wouldn’t have had to put in that desperate tackle which led to the foul from which Everton scored.

Perhaps it is a coincidence but, just as Liverpool’s performances have started to flag so too has Dirk Kuyt. The great player who was on show at the start of the season has been nowhere to be seen lately. He runs as much and as hard as ever, but it doesn’t really lead to anything and he’s stopped scoring goals.

Goals have been a rarity for Robbie Keane but he has the excuse of not being given enough playing time. I felt that it was harsh to take him out of the team when he had scored three times in two games but, on this day’s showing he clearly doesn’t know what he should be doing. Hardly had a touch and made no impact on the game.

Substitutes
Yossi Benayoun was unlucky to concede that late foul for, in reality, he shouldn’t have been the one making that tackle. It would be unfair to judge Lucas too harshly seeing how little playing time he had. That said, he did give away an awful lot of unnecessary fouls during that brief stay. Ryan Babel was on the pitch for far too little time to judge him.