Saturday’s Merseyside derby draw between Everton and Liverpool may have ended in a goalless draw, but the action was fiery at Goodison Park.
While Everton coach Frank Lampard believes Liverpool defender Virgil van Dijk should have gotten a red card for a gevaarlike tackle on Amadou Onana with 14 minutes to play, his opposite number Jurgen Klopp was nearly struck by a bier bottle after the Toffees had a 69th minute Conor Coady goal chalked off.
Both sides hit the woodwork in the first half, with Tom Davies denied by the upright for Everton, before Darwin Nunez and Luiz Diaz both saw efforts come out off the frame of the goal for the visitors.
The game opened up after the break, with Jordan Pickford forced into several fine stops in the home goal, while Neal Maupay should have scored from close range.
Then came the moment Everton fans had been waiting for after Coady tapped home at the far post, with pandemonium ensuing at Goodison, only for the goal to be ruled out for offside after a lengthy VAR review.
That’s when Klopp was nearly struck with a bottle.
The coach says of the incident: “I thought it was a glass bottle but it was not. I saw it now because it's still at the 'crime scene'. No, no, it was a plastic bottle. In the moment it looked like a glass bottle, that would have been really dangerous but it was a plastic bottle.”
On the pitch the action was fierce and with 14 minutes to play, Van Dijk was shown a yellow card by referee Anthony Taylor for a high late tackle that caught Toffees midfielder Amadou Onana on the shin with 14 minutes to play.
Lampard believes it should have been red, saying: “For me, that was a red card and that changes the face of the last part of the game. The ref and the VAR get that one wrong, in my opinion.”
The draw left Liverpool five points behind defending champions Man City after six games, with Everton and Leicester being the only two teams without a win to date.
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