IT'S AN indication of the globalisation of English football that the most significant news concerning tomorrow's Merseyside derby is the absence of an Australian and an Argentine from the starting line-ups.
Tim Cahill and Javier Mascherano's names will be missing from the Everton and Liverpool team sheets for very different reasons although each has become key to the way their teams have played this season. Cahill, out for the rest of the season because
his specially-designed protective boot failed to prevent a recurrence of a metatarsal injury, is the man who provides goals at important times for Everton, and a player with the inclination to raise his game against the toughest opposition. Mascherano, suspended due to his enthusiasm to show off his grasp of vernacular English to the referee Steve Bennett at Old Trafford last Sunday, had been the player who brought stability and resilience to the Liverpool midfield.
Everton's loss may be marginally the greater in that the onus is on them to win this weekend. Liverpool hold a two-point lead in the chase for the fourth-place Champions League spot, and are far enough adrift from third place to be satisfied with a draw. Everton's season, on a subdued simmer over the last month, is threatening to fade disappointingly unless they can produce something special at Anfield.
It is understandable that those who favour fixed-odds gambling might be inclined to mark this as a banker draw. You would exhaust a long list of adjectives to describe the opposing managers Rafael Benitez and David Moyes before you stumbled over "adventurous". Moyes, encouraged by the absence of Mascherano to believe his team can get a grip on midfield, is likely to string five across the middle. In the absence of the unfailingly bold Cahill, Mikel Arteta is the only one of that quintet with a strictly attacking brief.
That element of caution could turn out to be unnecessary and even self-defeating. For Liverpool, the derby arrives at a crucial point of the season, when their attention will be distracted by next week's Champions League encounter with Arsenal. With Liverpool's confidence dented, if not crushed by last weekend's comprehensive defeat at Old Trafford, Moyes might find a bolder approach would be rewarded. In particular the tactic of asking both Andy Johnson and Yakubu to run at Liverpool's less than fleet central defenders would seem obvious.
For Moyes, fourth place would be a significant achievement, and would mark a successful season. For Benitez it is a bare minimum requirement, and he really needs another of his remarkable runs to a Champions League final to salvage some credit from another season of failure.
If he has learned anything from the eminence puce that is Sir Alex Ferguson, who, like any magician, always knows the value of distraction, Benitez should have been grateful to Mascherano, whose antics overshadowed a generally lacklustre performance from his team. While everybody wheeled out the familiar opprobrium for another Argentine who had misbehaved, nobody had time to point out that Benitez's much-vaunted team had been completely outplayed.
One team-mate who must have been grateful that Mascherano attracted all the post-match vilification was the Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina, culpable for two of Manchester United's goals last Sunday.
Reina's performance against United was a caricature of all the old stereotypes about continental goalkeepers: adept at flamboyant shot-stopping, flailing and ineffectual when it came to dealing with routine crosses. In fairness this was uncharacteristic of Reina. His display against United was more in the tradition of the curse that afflicts Liverpool goalkeepers against Manchester United, with his predecessors David James and Jerzy Dudek suffering considerably worse afternoons between the posts.
Reina remains a key part of Benitez's team's spine. The elderly Sami Hyppia, when fit, has been impressive enough this season alongside Jamie Carragher to earn a new contract, Mascherano has been integral to the team's defensive resilience, Steven Gerrard remains an inspirational presence, and Torres is presently the best out-and-out centre-forward in the world.
Benitez can afford one of them to be absent or have an off day. If more than one is posted missing, his team is vulnerable. For once, Moyes might be advised to cast off his innate Caledonian pessimism and tell his players to seize the day.
The full article contains 735 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
