Everton need result in Merseyside derby – talkSPORT pundit
Everton face their toughest test of the season so far on Saturday as Merseyside rivals Liverpool head across Stanley Park to the blue side of the city.
Jurgen Klopp’s side have recorded back-to-back wins to recover from their own slow start to the campaign and head to Goodison Park hoping to keep up their record of losing just one of the last 26 Merseyside derbies.
Frank Lampard’s Toffees have drawn three successive games in the Premier League to just about keep themselves above the relegation zone but all that goes out of the window on derby day as talkSPORT pundit Ray Parlour knows.
“It’s a massive game for Everton, they need a result,” Parlour said. “It’s a bad record but anything can happen on the day and Liverpool aren’t massively bang in form.
“They’re getting over the line in certain games but they haven’t really been like they were last season but we know that they have so much quality that if they all turn up on the day Liverpool will be massive favourites to win the game.”
Fight
For Everton fans, there is no bigger game than this and each and every one of them expects the players in blue to fight for their lives to win the game.
It has been 12 long years since Evertonians have walked away from Goodison Park on derby day having seen their team take all three points and Lampard will be as keen as anyone to reset that clock back to zero.
So he should be feeding that passion back to the players and ensuring that if Liverpool do win on rival soil, they do so having been forced to work extremely hard rather than gifting the game to them before a ball has been kicked.
But with bragging rights up for grabs once more, even defeat is not really good enough for the Toffees and Lampard could be feeling the pressure from the Finch Farm hierarchy if he fails to turn around the wretched form.