Everton 1 Liverpool 3: A derby contest is supposed to be an illusionist's delight, with passion transforming every appearance, but this fixture was exactly what it seemed. One team are Champions League holders, the other are trying to hang on to Premier League membership.
Everton cut the deficit to 2-1 for a while but their real consolation is knowing that sides of Liverpool's calibre are not their current benchmark.
The Goodison team will protest Momo Sissoko made too much of the foul that saw Phil Neville sent off for a second yellow card with 22 minutes remaining, Mikel Arteta following in injury-time for a second yellow card. Despite that, Liverpool's superiority was indisputable.
Liverpool were not so much in search of a ninth consecutive win in the Premiership as fully expectant it was waiting to be collected. High balls caused Rafael Benitez's team discomfort but that was nothing compared with the anguish inflicted on opponents who were 2-0 behind within 18 minutes.
Whatever Everton's technical inadequacies, they launched themselves down the wings and exploited Liverpool's insecurity to notch a goal three minutes before the interval through James Beattie. The striker had been denied earlier when the ball was dubiously ruled to have gone out of play before he headed Arteta's cross home.
Liverpool's superior quality would eventually take its toll and Moyes's tactical plan last night did not seem to add up at first glance. A club that had scored only four times in the Premiership at Goodison this season had chosen to dispense with one of its strikers, leaving Beattie to comprise the attack by himself.
All of that scheming was rendered obsolete in the 11th minute when Peter Crouch, as Djibril Cisse would later do, helped himself to a goal on his debut in a Merseyside derby. The move smacked of his self-belief and that of the whole side. Liverpool, pressing hard after Jose Reina kicked downfield, assembled the move out of a Sissoko header, a Cisse flick and the Steven Gerrard pass that released the striker to round Nigel Martyn before shooting home from an angle.
Moyes's logic, however, had not been all that tortuous. The manager, in the wake of a pair of 4-0 drubbings, was making it a priority to throw bodies in Liverpool's path. There was a sensible decision to prise Neville out of the left-back berth and ask him to confront the most potent department of the visitors' team.
The Liverpool manager has the comfort not only of that potent midfield but of a squad that lets him vary his approach for specific purposes. Cisse's pace promised to be more of a terror to defenders such as the veteran David Weir than the know-how of Fernando Morientes would have been at the outset.
Everton were harassed by the Frenchman and even, at the second goal, by an enterprising centre-half. Sami Hyypia stopped them from clearing in the 18th minute as he nipped play out to Steve Finnan on the right. The full back's cross was headed out by Tim Cahill but Gerrard manoeuvred on the edge of the area and fired past an unsighted Martyn.
Cisse failed to convert a Crouch knockdown three minutes later but Everton then started to bring more fire to their attacks. Liverpool were broken after 42 minutes. Arteta squeezed a delivery over and Kevin Kilbane met it before Simon Davies lobbed the ball on for Beattie to head past Reina. Liverpool's hope of a new club record of nine successive clean sheets in the league was at an end.
Everton must have hoped they could open the second half by keeping the action frenetic but Liverpool had too much poise to allow that. They struck on the counter-attack as Cisse acted as his manager had envisaged.
Harry Kewell struck the ball to the forward down the left in the 47th minute, allowing Cisse to run at Weir and beat him before mustering the precise, low finish to the corner of the net. For a spell after that, there was an air of exhibition football about Liverpool. There was still fight in Everton but desperation was apparent, too, and never more so than when Neville fouled Sissoko to be sent off, with a second booking, in the 68th minute.
Guardian Service
EVERTON: Martyn, Hibbert, Yobo, Weir, Nuno Valente, Arteta, Neville, Davies (McFadden 57), Kilbane, Cahill, Beattie. Subs not used: Wright, Bent, Ferrari, Osman. Sent off: Neville (68), Arteta (90). Booked: Cahill, Neville, Beattie, Arteta. Goals: Beattie 42.
LIVERPOOL: Reina, Finnan, Carragher, Hyypia, Warnock, Gerrard (Luis Garcia 85), Sissoko, Alonso, Kewell (Riise 80), Crouch (Morientes 77), Cisse. Subs not used: Dudek, Josemi. Booked: Kewell, Crouch. Goals: Crouch 11, Gerrard 18, Cisse 47.
Referee: G Poll (Hertfordshire).
