Trouble at Goodison Park? Liverpool’s record against Everton in the Merseyside Derby

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Everton v Liverpool 

©TM/IMAGO

Although Arsenal and Manchester City fans may have all but resigned themselves to missing out on this season’s Premier League title race, there is still a lot of football left to be played and a few twists or turns may present themselves in the coming weeks and months ahead. One such bump in the road for league leaders Liverpool may come in the form of their trip to Goodison Park on Wednesday night, where they will face a cross-city rival that has a habit of causing an upset when their Anfield neighbours come in search of all three points. 

Arne Slot’s side currently sit top of the Premier League table with a somewhat comfortable six-point cushion and game in hand over second-placed Arsenal, with an impressive away record of just six points dropped from 12 games mostly fueling Liverpool’s race to the league title. However, the Anfield side will likely have to be at their best when they take on Everton on Wednesday night, as they not only face a team that have been revitalised with three consecutive wins under returning manager David Moyes but also a venue that has caused all sorts of problems for Liverpool in the past. 

Indeed, when we flick through the history books of the Premier League we can quickly see how often Liverpool have stumbled in the league when they’ve made the short trip to Goodison Park. Such has been the club’s poor record at the venue that the Anfield club have not only failed to win at Everton’s home ground since December 2021 but when we take a look at their record in the last 15 fixtures we can see that Liverpool have actually won just four since November 2009. As we can see, the vast majority of results have ended in rather bland draws, with Everton winning just two of the fixtures themselves. But there’s little doubt that Moyes and his side would happily take a point from Wednesday’s clash for the sake of their own season, while conveniently putting a dent in Liverpool’s lead at the top of the table. 

Interestingly, when we then compare Liverpool’s record in away games against Everton to all other clubs in the Premier League we can see just how much the Merseyside derby has caused problems for the Anfield club over the years. When we track results from the formation of the Premier League (i.e the start of the 1992/93 season) we can see that only five clubs routinely take more points from Liverpool in away games than Everton. On average, the Reds win around 1.7 points per game in their trips to Goodison Park and have a win rate of just 43.8%. As we can see, four of the five clubs that cause more issues for Liverpool are four of the traditional “Big Six” clubs, while Tottenham’s home ground sits just below Everton in seventh place. Nottingham Forest, who have only hosted Liverpool 16 times in the Premier League era, have quickly rose to fifth having lost just four matches in front of their own fans against the Anfield club.