On Sunday, the women’s Merseyside derby took place. Both Everton and Liverpool have made major signings with Everton Signing Italian and previous Serie A 3rd top scorer Martina Piemonte for an Undisclosed fee from AC Milan and Liverpool signing Norwegian Forward Sophia Roman-Haug for £100,000 from Roma. Both teams are looking to push up the table from Everton’s 6th and Liverpool’s 7th place in the previous season.
Liverpool’s season kicked off strongly, gaining 6 points from an opening day win at Arsenal and a win against Aston Villa last week, On the contrary Everton have had a slow start to the season losing their first 2 games.
Both teams are looking to push up
Kicking off in front of a 23,088 crowd at Anfield, Everton are forced to make an early change in the 3rd minute after a rough tackle sees Scottish midfielder Lucy Hope having to leave the pitch in a Switch for Australian Clare Wheeler. With Hope leaving the field literal hope for Everton seems also lost as Missy Bo Kearns finds the back of the net for Liverpool, however it is shortly called off side. A corner in the 32nd minute, sees Dane Katrine Veje whip in an excellent ball that finds Everton academy graduate and captain, Megan Finnigan in the box who heads it cleanly into the back of the net above Liverpool keeper Rachel Laws. After an evenly contested first half, the half time whistle is blown with Everton leading 1–0 going into the break. Everton Kicked off the second half. After an uneventful 10 minutes, Everton attempted to change the game tempo by subbing on Dutch Striker, Katja Snoeijs who returns from injury in the 56th minute. However, this attacking change seemed to benfit Liverpool as they find their way through on goal in the 59th minute with Missy Bo Kearns putting it just wide for the reds. With a rather stale 2nd half of football both teams make big changes with Liverpool making 4 Substitutions and the toffees making 3. In the 77th minute former Everton now Liverpool player Taylor Hinds in booked for a foul on Dane, Karen Holmgaard, shortly folllowed by a late attcking substitution for Liverpool which sees Austrian, Marie Höbinger replaced by Dane Sophia Lundgaard. In the early 80th minutes it seems Katja Snoeijs is destined to double Everton’s lead for the game as she sees multiple of her shots saved and one coming off the crossbar, however nothing comes off of it. In the late stages of the game the blues seem to be leaving it all out there to get their first win of the season racking up multiple yellow cards for Belgian midfeilder Justine Vanhaevermaet and Irish duo Heather Payne and Courtney Brosnan. This pays off for Everton as not long after Brosnans booking the final whistle is blown. The score being 1–0 to the away side. Resulting in Everton getting their first points of the season at Anfield and Liverpool taking their first loss.