Three former Reds who switched Anfield for Everton
The Merseyside Derby between Everton and Liverpool has long been one of English football’s most passionate with families and a city divided for the day.
You’re either red or your blue, that is unless you are one of those who played for both clubs in Britain’s answer to ‘Music City’.
And with Phillippe Coutinho being linked to potentially be the next ex-Anfield star to play in Everton blue [Fabrizio Romano], here are three other converts and how they did at Goodison Park.
Peter Beardsley
Signed in 1991 for £1million, Everton’s most expensive purchase from their rivals, Beardsley played 95 times for the Toffees over three years before he opted to leave in favour of a return to Newcastle United.
Capped 59 times by England, the Northumberland attacker scored 32 times for the club in all competitions including 10 goals in the vert first Premier League season, 1992-92.
He is one of only two players to have scored for both clubs in a Merseyside derby, with the other being who did so in the 1970s.
Gary Ablett
The only player to ever win the FA Cup with both Liverpool and Everton, Ablett was loved by both sides of the divide even though he was controversially sold by Graeme Souness to Goodison Park in 1992 for £750,000.
The solid defender retired in 2001 before a 16-month battle with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma ended at the age of 46.
Rafael Benitez
Perhaps the most controversial of them all is still at Everton now, 11 years have passed since Benitez left Liverpool as manager but his move to Goodison Park wasn’t the news Toffees wanted to hear.
A group of supporters even left a banner outside his home which read: ‘We know where you live. Don’t sign’.
Tensions have simmered slightly since but Everton’s poor 2021-22 season hasn’t helped the 61-year-old win over the fans.
Signing Coutinho, even on loan, might turn fans even more against the Spaniard who is already on thin ice.
But if the 29-year-old performs anywhere near how he did at Anfield, supporters will quickly forget his time in red and enjoy the bundles of talent the Brazilian has to offer.
In other Everton news, Greg O’Keefe says one of the club’s young stars could be on his way out.