Football story by Fred Smith, Thu, 29 Dec 2005 21:52:00 GMT


Liverpool registered their ninth consecutive win in the Premiership as they overcame a nine-man Everton team 3-1 in a Merseyside Derby last night. This was Everton's fifth straight defeat in the Premiership and David Moyes' position is looking pretty vulnerable at the moment.

But the main story of the game was Liverpool's continued dominance and they are now firmly in the third spot behind Manchester United and Chelsea.

The advantage for the Reds is that they have two games in hand since they missed fixtures on account of being away in Japan for the World Club Championship. Born again striker Peter Crouch opened the scoring for Liverpool with a smart finish in the 11th minute and skipper Steven Gerrard added another with a clinical finish on the stroke of 18 minutes.

Gerard was lucky that his shot from 25 yards took a deflection off Joseph Yobo and beat Nigel Martyn all ends up, but the credit must go to Gerrard for setting up that shot. James Beattie then had a header into goal that was disallowed, but that did not affect him as he put one away on the 42nd minute thus ending Liverpool's record 761 minutes without conceding a goal.

Visions of an Everton comeback were quickly quelled when Djibril Cisse netted a goal just two minutes after the break. Phil Neville and Mikel Arteta were red carded and nine-man Everton just played out the remaining time.

Everton manager David Moyes was disappointed with the disallowed goal, "We conceded goals at bad times, but I'm really pleased with the effort of the boys. They gave everything they could in this game," he said.

"The two lads, who were sent off, Phil Neville and Mikel Arteta, should have known better because they knew they were on yellow cards and had to be careful." Liverpool boss Rafael Benitez said that he wanted Cisse to stay on at Anfield, "I would like Cisse to stay here. We now have different strikers with different qualities. The question now is to use them in the right games. Cisse is a player who can give us a lot of things, as we have seen here."

Match Details
Referee: G Poll (Hertfordshire)

Everton: Martyn, Hibbert, Yobo, Weir, Nuno Valente, Arteta, Neville, Davies (McFadden 57), Kilbane, Cahill, Beattie

Liverpool: Reina, Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Warnock, Gerrard (Luis Garcia 85), Sissoko, Alonso, Kewell (Riise 80), Crouch (Morientes 77), Cisse

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