Red Myopia and an Embarrassing National Outcry

The world is a very strange place these days. The levels of pearl-clutching and near hysteria that have dominated the aftermath of Saturday's controversial Merseyside derby really have been something to behold. You would expect the Internet's diaspora of Kopites, with their unrivalled sense of entitlement and offended-by-everything approach to social media, to spend the next week bleating about how they were robbed of victory and that Jordan Pickford should be retrospectively banned for his “assault” on Virgil van Dijk.

That has happened, of course, in spades, along with a few reds “supporters” wishing death on Richarlison and Jordan Pickford and “promises” made to Van Dijk that his injury will be avenged on the streets of Liverpool should the Everton goalkeeper ever dare set foot there.

What has been incredible, though, is the reaction by pundits, journalists and high-profile media personalities, some of whom you might have credited with a bit more impartiality than to get pulled into the Big Red pity party in quite the way they have. The Sky Sports and BT Sport pundit panels are stuffed with ex-Liverpool players, of course, so Steve McManaman's insufferable “insights” and Graeme Souness's self-righteous indignation, hilariously mocked by Jamie Carragher for the flagrant hypocrisy it was, are par for the course.

But then you've got the likes of Martin Keown, an ex-Everton player and no stranger to cynical on-field transgressions himself, saying Pickford's impressive saves shouldn't count because he shouldn't have been on the pitch. The Daily Mail described the goalkeeper's challenge as “a horror tackle” and The Mirror have given column inches to ex-referee Keith Hackett who equated Pickford's actions to Roy Keane's premeditated lunge on Alf Inge Haaland and suggested that Liverpool FC should sue the Everton man for the money they will spend paying for his treatment and his wages while he recuperates over the next few months.

Former Premier League goalie Mark Bosnich and Julien Laurens, a man paid by EPSN among others for his opinions, took it to new heights of lunacy by arguing that Pickford should be banned for as long as Van Dijk is out injured. And to cap it all off, Georginio Wijnaldum's simpering complaints that he and his team-mates haven't slept since losing their captain have been carried across the back pages most of the major papers today, complete with a sorrowful piece by one of the industry's heavier weights in Henry Winter.

Where were these distraught pieces when André Gomes had his ankle snapped in two as the result of a cynical tackle by Son Hueng-Min that was a good deal more impetuous and intentional than Pickford's? Of course, as we Blues noted at the time, the media focus amid the fallout was on the South Korean's tears and emotional well-being. Son even had his red card rescinded by the Football Association even though he had endangered the Portuguese's career when the “red mist” descended.

Where was this almost mawkish response when Seamus Coleman suffered a double leg break and James McCarthy suffered the same fate a few years back? Or when Gerard Deulofeu ruptured his ACL in a challenge by Virgil van Dijk? Or, going further back, when Martin Taylor nearly ended Eduardo's career by breaking his ankle in 2008?

It's depressing that the back-page attention-grabbing tricks work so well in the clickbait economy of modern journalism so that newspaper editors indulge this sensationalist nonsense and it shouldn't be ignored that this media furore is fuelling and encouraging the abuse that Pickford and his wife — not to mention Richarlison, the other bad guy from Saturday — have been receiving on social media this week.

All of it is enough to confirm your suspicions that the world is losing its mind but, thankfully, there are more measured, mature heads out there willing to see the incidents on Saturday for what they were — the product of the heat of the moment in a local derby; unfortunate incidents that happen in football, particularly when emotions are running high.

Martin Samuel used his Sunday column in the Daily Mail to focus on the football and Everton finally playing their neighbours as equals after years of living in their shadow. Speaking to The Blue Room podcast, David Preece backed his fellow Mackem, saying that he can't listen to anyone who says Pickford acted with malice or that he even had time to. And David Squires had some fun with the situation in his latest cartoon for The Guardian, lampooning the funereal reaction from Liverpool to the loss of their skipper.

David Squires mocks the funereal reaction to Van Dijk's injury in his latest cartoon

From a psychological standpoint, much of the reaction from Liverpool fans has been understandable and there have been a few level-headed reds who accepted the situation for what it was. While the incident that caused Van Dijk's injury wasn't as visceral or shocking as those that befell Gomes and Coleman in particular, Liverpool have lost a hugely important player and the fact that it was a player from the old enemy that caused it has only rubbed salt into the wounds.

Richarlison's even more rash and dangerous tackle on Thiago Alcà¢ntara has, unfortunately, only intensified the witch hunt and with the media piling on, there is a danger that what was arguably one of the nicest teams in the Premier League — indeed, too nice for too long — is being painted as a gang of thugs that goes out with the express intent of injuring their opponents. Certainly, Wijnaldum's whingeing with the media's backing is doing nothing to quell the outrage and the calls for some kind of “justice”, and as the narrative builds, so does the likelihood that Everton will find themselves on the wrong end of another big decision in the coming weeks. Perhaps that's the point.

Let's be clear — Jordan Pickford's challenge on Van Dijk was, at best, clumsy (and typically Pickford-esque in that respect) and, at worst, utterly reckless. Richarlison's was born of frustration but unforgivable and he was deservedly red-carded. Had the rules not been muddied by the introduction of VAR, Pickford probably would have been sent off, too, and the post-match discussion would be dominated by Evertonians — and observers of the England national team as well, no doubt — questioning how much longer the former Sunderland man can keep the starting spot in Carlo Ancelotti's team. (In reality, that debate can't be staved off much longer because Pickford almost cost his team-mates the game with that incident and his blunder for Jordan Henderson's disallowed goal at the death but that's a matter for another column.)

It wasn't premeditated — and modern super slow-mo replays don't help in this respect because they make it look as though he had time to think about his actions — and if there was any intent in it at all, it was probably to merely ensure that Van Dijk, in the same way the Dutchman had “left something” on James Rodriguez and Dominic Calvert-Lewin in the first couple of minutes of Saturday's match, know he was in a local derby. The fact that Pickford connects with the defender's leg as it was planted, thereby hyper-extending the ligaments on impact, was just unfortunate and made the “tackle” look that much worse.

Contact sport: Virgil van Dijk escapes causing Dries Mertens serious injury in a Champions League clash with Napoli

That the outcry has been so loud and widespread in the media speaks, no doubt, to the fact that Van Dijk is regarded as one of the best players in his position, appears to be a decent guy and model professional. It's also down to who he plays for — the reigning Premier League champions and one of the media darling “big six” so there are plenty of parallels here to the “Project Big Picture” issue that took up all the oxygen last week. It's hard to imagine a player from any other club bar maybe Manchester United getting such a reaction from the press and very little has been said about an awful two-footed lunge by Lewis Dunk from the weekend that could have been just as damaging as Pickford's had the Brighton defender not been as fortunate.

What Goes Around Comes Around

No one would argue that Virgil van Dijk had an injury like that coming to him — he's not that kind of player — or that any current reds player would be deserving of having seven to nine months carved out of their career as a result of one poor tackle. He's not the first to come off badly from the blood and thunder of a Mersey derby, though. Marouane Fellaini was once sidelined by a two-footed challenge from Sotiris Kyrgiakos in an Anfield derby in 2010 and, most notable of all (but seemingly lost in the mists of time where modern journos are concerned because it's from that “different generation” that Souness so conveniently but lamely invoked at the weekend), Liverpool's Jimmy Case ended Geoff Nulty's career with a horrible tackle 40 years ago.

Marouane Fellaini was sidelined for a lengthy period by an ugly tackle by Sotiris Kyrgiakos in 2010

But the bed-wetting by some Liverpool fans overlooks just how lucky their team has been with regard to serious injury to their players in recent years. While Everton have had leg and ankle fractures, ACLs, Achilles tendon ruptures, medal ligament injuries and quadricep tears that have deprived them of key players for long periods. Jürgen Klopp has been able to call upon a remarkably consistent team and it was a big reason why Liverpool cantered to the title last season.

And while the Anfield hierarchy are demanding answers from the Premier League over VAR reviews and the ever-evolving offside rule and will, with their outsized reputation and consequent heft, probably agitate enough to force through some kind of change, they're conveniently forgetting just how much and how often they have benefitted from decisions on a routine basis. Indeed, this pathetic reaction from their fans to being on the wrong side of very clear rules is illustrative of a fanbase utterly unfamiliar with the kind of refereeing injustice that teams like Everton experience all too frequently. Not for nothing did “Penalty to Liverpool!” become a meme on Twitter last season as Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah dived and flopped their way to cheap penalty kicks. Now the boot is finally on the other foot, they can't handle it.

And let's not forget just how lopsided the Merseyside derby hall of infamous and scandalous officiating has become over the years. There are incidents that date back four decades that still wound Evertonians to this day and many can reel them off without taking a breath. For them, the following won't be anything other than a painful reminder so feel free to skip this wander down memory lane but any reds who have got this far might need a dose of perspective.

Clive Thomas disallowed a perfectly legitimate goal by Bryan Hamilton that robbed Everton of a place in the 1977 FA Cup Final that might well have transformed what ended up being a barren decade after the Toffees lifted the title in 1970.

In the 1984 Milk Cup Final, another incident that will never be forgotten by the Blue family, Alan Hansen's clear handball on the line denied Adrian Heath a winner that would have delivered a trophy to Goodison Park a few weeks earlier than would end up being the case when Howard Kendall steered his team to FA Cup glory.

In April 2000, in one of the more egregious errors in judgement, Graham Poll blew the final whistle as the ball was heading towards Sander Westerveld's empty goal, the reds' keeper having blasted a clearance against Don Hutchison's backside, depriving Walter Smith's side of victory. Unlike Thomas, who has never provided an explanation, years later, Poll would admit he got the decision wrong and the goal should have allowed.

And Poll was at the centre of controversy again in an Anfield derby in 2002 when he elected to award Liverpool a free-kick instead of Everton a penalty for handball by Stephan Henchoz and then somehow failed to take action against Steven Gerrard for a dreadful two-footed assault on a prone Gary Naysmith.

In 2007, it was Mark Clattenburg's turn to take centre stage in a Goodison derby that saw two Everton players receive red cards, the first of which, for Tony Hibbert, was going to be just a booking as the referee reached for his yellow card but changed his mind after Gerrard got in his ear. The seething injustice around this edition of the derby was compounded by the fact that Clattenburg failed to give the Blues a penalty when Joleon Lescott was hauled down in the box by Jamie Carragher and the referee failed to even card Dirk Kuyt for an incredible, flying, two-footed, waist-high lunge on Phil Neville that the latter managed to avoid by hurdling out the way.

Then, in 2011, match official Martin Atkinson, was completely taken in by Luis Suarez's blatant dive right in front of him and brandished a red card to Jack Rodwell, ending that Goodison derby as a contest in just the 22nd minute and condemning Everton to a 2-0 defeat.

Suarez, of course, was the villain of the piece two years later back at the Old Lady when his stamp on Kevin Mirallas took the Belgian out of the game but went unpunished, another in that long list of Blue derby grievances.

And just on Saturday, Liverpool got away with another two incidents, one where Andrew Robertson kicked out at Allan and the other where Mané blatantly tripped Yerry Mina off the ball. Neither of them caused any injury — although had Robertson raked his studs down Allan's Achilles rather this his calf, it may have been a different story — but they've also been completely glossed over in the hand-wringing over Van Dijk's injury.

Andrew Robertson's cynical kick out at Allan went unseen and unpunished by the officials

And do we even have to mention the Heysel ban, the greatest injustice of them all?

All in all, the fallout from Saturday's derby has been a little pathetic to watch unfold but, again, there's a risk of narratives being sown that could have implications for way that match officials treat both clubs going forward. It's incredibly myopic of Wijnaldum to claim that Everton “take it way too far in the games we play against them,” when you survey the modern history of the derby and what has been perpetrated by both sides.

It was a derby, one of the more even and tightly-contested for quite a while but one also marred by a couple of very poor tackles that have garnered all the attention and one that, unfortunately, resulted in a long-term injury. No one died; life will go on, and while the northwest is roiled by rising Coronavirus cases, fresh lockdowns and the resulting economic hardship, you'd think there were more important things to whine about.