Online Reporter
Liverpool continued their march towards the Premier League title with a 1-0 victory over Everton in a scrappy Merseyside derby as Diogo Jota slotted home the winner in the second half on Wednesday.
The champions elect, with 73 points after 30 games, restored their 12-point lead over second-placed Arsenal while Everton, whose nine-game league unbeaten ended, are 15th on 34 points.
Everton’s Beto had an early goal chalked off for offside and missed a sitter before Jota broke the deadlock in the 57th minute with his first goal in two-and-a-half months. Anfield erupted when Luis Diaz back-heeled the ball into Jota’s path and the Portuguese forward beat a tackle before firing into the net.
Liverpool fans thought Everton should have been reduced to 10 men after 11 minutes following a fierce tackle by defender James Tarkowski on Alexis Mac Allister, but Everton’s captain was only shown a yellow card.
The teams had met in an explosive derby in February that ended 2-2, with Tarkowski equalising deep in stoppage time in a chaotic game that featured four red cards, including one to Liverpool manager Arne Slot.
While Liverpool are unbeaten in 26 league games, they went into last month’s international break on a negative note after being eliminated by Paris St Germain in the Champions League and losing to Newcastle United in the League Cup final.
Meanwhile, Slot said he does not agree with the offside rule that meant Diogo Jota’s goal stood, but that the right decision was made.
Jota fired home the only goal just before the hour mark at Anfield as Liverpool opened up a 12-point lead at the top of the Premier League.
Luis Diaz had been in an offside position when James Tarkowski cut out a pass towards the Colombian.
But Diaz then pounced on the loose ball to tee up Jota to drill in his first goal since January.
Everton boss David Moyes said he was disappointed to lose a derby to a “clearly offside goal”.
However, Slot said the officials did get the decision right as the rules stand given Tarkowski deliberately played the ball.
“It was not offside, according to the rules,” said Slot.
“Do I like the rule? No, I don’t like the rule. I hate that rule but the execution of the rule was fortunately for us today well done in that situation.”
The goal was the second highly controversial call of the game after Tarkowski avoided a red card just 11 minutes in for a wild lunge on Alexis Mac Allister.
The Everton captain was given a yellow card by referee Samuel Barrott, who was not instructed by VAR to review his original decision.
Slot said he did not need to comment on the decision as so many others had spoken out on the challenge.
Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville described it as a “leg breaker” in his role as a pundit commentating on the match.
Even Moyes accepted that Tarkowski was lucky to stay on the field.
“Since I have seen it, we could have been lucky we didn’t get a red,” said Moyes.
“It looked a high one. I think it was the follow through that looked worse.” − SuperSport
