The 64th Premier League Merseyside derby takes place at Goodison Park on Wednesday night, with Liverpool looking to keep up their title challenge. We look ahead to the clash with our Everton vs Liverpool prediction and preview.
Everton vs Liverpool Stats: The Quick Hits
- Liverpool are expected to win at Goodison Park on Wednesday, with the Opta supercomputer simulating an away win on 56.2% of occasions.
- Everton are winless in their last 12 Premier League home games against Liverpool (D9 L3), their longest run without a home win against any opponent in their league history.
- Liverpool have lost just one of their last 26 Premier League games against Everton (W12 D13), winning four of the last five and keeping a clean sheet in the last four.
Match Preview
Jürgen Klopp will go into his final Merseyside derby as Liverpool manager hoping to secure another three points against their rivals to keep their Premier League title challenge alive.
The German coach could set a club record in this match should his side secure all three points. He’s currently won nine of his 16 league games against Everton, with no Liverpool manager before him ever winning as many as 10 Merseyside derby games in league competition.
He’ll be hoping that forward Mohamed Salah can keep up his great record against Everton, with the Egyptian directly involved in six goals across his last five Premier League games versus the Toffees (five goals, one assist). Indeed, six of Liverpool’s last 11 Premier League goals in this fixture have been scored by him.
Salah scored both goals in Liverpool’s 2-0 win in the reverse fixture in October. The last Liverpool player to score two or more goals in both league fixtures against Everton in a season was Dick Forshaw back in 1925-26.
Everton’s 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest on Sunday saw them move five points above the relegation zone, but with a fixture against 18th-place Luton Town at Kenilworth Road coming up at the start of May, Sean Dyche’s side are far from safe.
Dyche has won just two of his 16 Premier League meetings against Liverpool, while his 12 defeats suffered against the Reds are only surpassed by 14 against Manchester City.
Jarrad Branthwaite, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Idrissa Gana Gueye all returned to action in the win over Forest, with the latter scoring his first goal at Goodison Park in the Premier League since 2017.
It’s likely that Everton will have no fresh injury worries ahead of kick-off on Wednesday night, but Séamus Coleman is unlikely to play, and Nathan Patterson will definitely miss out.
Liverpool’s injury list is much reduced compared to recent months, but they’ll still be missing the trio of Joël Matip, Thiago Alcântara and Conor Bradley for this derby match.
Everton vs Liverpool Head-to-Head
The Merseyside derby has been a one-sided affair in recent times, with Liverpool losing just one of their last 26 Premier League games against Everton (W12 D13). They’ve won four of the last five and kept a clean sheet in the last four.
Everton are winless in their last 12 Premier League home games against their rivals (D9 L3), which is their longest run without a home win against any opponent in their entire league history. Their last league win against Liverpool at Goodison Park came in October 2010, in a 2-0 victory courtesy of goals from Tim Cahill and current Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta.
Everton haven’t even scored a single goal in their last four encounters with Liverpool, their longest run without a league goal against the Reds since a run of nine matches in a row between 1972 and 1976.
Traditionally, this match has been the most heated in Premier League history. The Merseyside derby has seen more red cards than any other fixture in the competition (23), with Everton’s 16 the most one side has against another in the competition.
Ashley Young was sent off in the reverse fixture, though there hasn’t been a red card in both meetings between the sides in a single season since 2005-06.
Recent Form
Liverpool have recovered well from a mini slump in form, with their 3-1 victory over Fulham at Craven Cottage following Thursday’s UEFA Europa League win in Italy against Atalanta.
Despite their second-leg win, Liverpool exited the competition after a disastrous 3-0 loss at Anfield a week earlier, which was followed three days later by a shock 1-0 home loss to Crystal Palace in the Premier League.
The win at Fulham featured Ryan Gravenberch’s first Premier League goal, while Trent Alexander-Arnold marked his first league start in more than two months with an exquisite free-kick to opening the scoring. Diogo Jota wrapped up the win with his 15th competitive goal of the season for Liverpool – only Salah (24) and Darwin Núñez (18) have scored more.
Everton’s 2-0 win over Forest on Sunday secured a second successive Premier League home victory after a 1-0 win over Burnley earlier this month. It’s the first time that Everton have won back-to-back home games in the league since December, while this game offers them the opportunity to secure three home league wins in succession for the first time since September 2021.
The win at the weekend followed an embarrassing 6-0 loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last Monday, which was Dyche’s heaviest defeat across his managerial career.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this Wednesday night, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Everton vs Liverpool Predicted Lineups
Everton vs Liverpool Prediction
The Opta supercomputer makes Liverpool heavy favourites in this Merseyside derby on Wednesday night, with the Reds winning 56.2% of the pre-match simulations.
Everton eased their relegation worries with their win over Nottingham Forest on Sunday afternoon, and a first Merseyside derby win at Goodison Park since 2010 would be more than welcome. However, the supercomputer deems that unlikely, with less than a fifth of pre-match sims seeing the Toffees win in midweek (18.1%).
There have been 25 draws between Everton and Liverpool in the Premier League, with only Chelsea versus Manchester United seeing more (26). Of the 10,000 pre-match simulations, this game was drawn 25.7% of the time.
As it stands, Everton have just a 1% chance of relegation from the Premier League this season in the latest projections following the weekend, while Liverpool are third favourites for the Premier League title at 15.9%.
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