Jurgen Klopp has apologised after Liverpool’s title hopes suffered a potentially fatal blow after losing to Everton at Goodison Park for the first time since 2010.
Everton started strongly in front of a raucous home crowd, and saw an early penalty decision overturned after consultation with VAR. Alisson brought down Dominic Calvert-Lewin inside the area, though the striker was adjudged offside in the build up.
Klopp’s side struggled with the physicality from set-pieces of the home side throughout, with the Reds coming under aerial bombardment, and Everton opened the scoring through Jarrad Branthwaite. Liverpool failed to deal with a ball into the box and Ibrahima Konate’s miscue fell to the Everton centre-back, who squeezed a finish under Alisson.
Liverpool improved in the closing stages of the first half but failed to find a route back into the game, with Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez again off the boil. The latter missed the best chance for the visitors after firing straight at Jordan Pickford when well placed.
Everton’s second goal arrived on 58 minutes as Calvert-Lewin rose high to meet Dwight McNeil’s corner kick. Liverpool’s marking was slack, and the Everton number nine thumped in a header to double the advantage.
Luis Diaz hit the woodwork for Liverpool in the closest sign of a potential comeback, but the Reds were second-best, outworked and outfought, as Everton took a huge step towards safety and inflicted huge damage on their rivals’ hopes of winning the Premier League this season.
“I really feel for the people, I’m really sorry for that obviously. People told me so often about my great record [in derbies], before the derby especially you hear, ‘But you never win here’. But we never lost and that feels really different. I really apologise for that, it was unnecessary but it happened,” Klopp said at his post-match press conference.
“We cannot change it anymore. We have to recover because the quickest of all turnarounds is waiting for us. You can imagine that will be now a challenge obviously mentally and physically. Physically, it was clear. If you win a game then the mental turnaround is obviously not a massive problem, but we have now both things to do. And probably West Ham is waiting and rubbing their hands and hoping that we come there on one leg. But I will try absolutely everything to make sure we are much more ourselves than we were tonight.”
Asked whether Liverpool can still win the title this season, Klopp said his team ‘need a crisis’ at title rivals Manchester City and Arsenal to be crowned champions.
“I understand it, it’s part of the business, but I don’t know why I have to answer this question – obviously you can read the table. So, should I say now we are still fully in? We need a crisis at [Manchester] City and Arsenal, and need to win football games, because if they start now losing all the games and we do what we did tonight, nothing changed. And we are not safe in the Champions League as well so we should just play better football.”
