As far as Merseyside derby's go, Saturday's was quite a dull, uninspiring affair until a certain young man called Fernando Torres came to life and promptly delivered the much needed three points to the red half of Merseyside and keep the Fields Of Anfield Road alive with songs.

Talking to an Evertonian pal of mine on Saturday (unfortunately he fits into the "Bitter Blue" category of Evertonian) about the game he provided his verdict on the game quite colourfully.

In short, his opinion went something like this - Torres did nothing, he was glad they didn't sign Riera as he was crap, Arbeloa should have been sent off, Everton didn't deserve to lose, Gerrard is over-rated etc; etc. It was quite funny really. When I reminded him that Torres did actually do something as he scored two goals. Apparently they were gifted to him and apart from that he didn't do a thing.

Obviously it is always good to win against Everton and Saturday was no exception. Apart from the three points, again there were encouraging signs all over the pitch. Despite what my Evertonian pal said I think that Albert Riera is showing some good, early promising signs. Even when he's not actually taking full-backs on he is constantly providing width and as a result stretching defences. Early signs but I think he will prove to be a great signing.

One player for me that just gets better and better is Martin Skrtel. I said at the start of the season that by the end of it he will be talked about as one of the top centre-backs in the Premiership. Good on the ball, good in the air, strong as an Ox, never shirks a tackle, good pace, he is more and more looking more assured and in command. Mind you playing alongside Bootle's finest must be a pleasure and no doubt Jamie Carragher has helped him bring his game on immensely.

No Javier Mascherano on Saturday but again Xabi Alonso demonstrated why we should not have considered selling him in the summer. No disrespect to Gareth Barry but is he really any better than Alonso? I don't think so.

Robbie Keane worked as hard as ever and was involved in both goals. Like many before have said, when he gets his first goal a weight will be lifted and probably a steady flow will follow.

PSV next up. If we can take the three points then we will be well on our way in the Group stages. I'm not sure how they have started in their league but we should fancy ourselves at Anfield.

Anyway, although we haven't exactly been pulling up any trees with our performances we have made a really good solid start to the season and we seem to have a very strong squad with a wide variety of options. No silly predictions but it is clear to see that we are better than previous seasons (although I think we need to keep a close eye on the full-backs).

Keep it up Red Men.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 at 6:20 pm and is filed under Match Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.