Sendings-off and penalties have always been commonplace in Merseyside derbies.
That shouldn't mean that the people officiating these all-important games have the remit of showing a red card at the first sighting of a slightly over-the-top challenge. Or, in today's case, a goofy Uruguayan rolling around as if he had been shot.
The 216th Merseydside derby hinged on an absolutely shocking decision from referee Martin Atkinson which saw the dismissal of Everton's Jack Rodwell midway through the first half. Rodwell cleanly won a loose ball on the slide and his momentum caused South American Suarez to tumble over.
The challenge was totally clean, good and fair. I have since been told that Graeme Souness on Sky Sports said that it wasn't even a foul, which tells you just how bad a decision it was. The referee was stood no more than three yards away from the incident. Baffling.
Rodwell's case - which needn't have existed - was not helped by Suarez - who flopped to the floor, held aloft his arm in appeal and, bizarrely, clutched his knee in apparent agony. Suarez, unfortunately, is an excellent footballer and there is no disputing that.
He's also a horrible, slimy cheat.
After returning from the match I saw
this thread on the GrandOldTeam forum. Whilst the game is not completely dead on me yet, it is heading that way thanks to the antics of cheating little gets like Suarez.
Assuming a man advantage, Liverpool took control of the game. Our defending, as last week, was resolute and we were rarely threatened. And then Suarez decided he would take a tumble. Penalty.
Phil Jagielka had certainly made contact with the Uruguayan in the corner of the box, and I have no complaints over the award of the spot-kick. Suarez again made up the referee's mind by rolling around a bit and Atkinson pointed to the spot.
Dirk Kuyt - a thorn in our side throughout recent derbies - stepped up to take the penalty, but was thwarted by an excellent left-handed save from Tim Howard.
With an extra 2 men (the referee), Liverpool were again unlucky not to score before the break as Charlie 'goofy' Adam struck the bar with a long-range effort.
The main topic of conversation at the interval was obvious - the question was: could we hold on for a draw or would the inevitable happen?
Sadly, it was to be the latter. Despite having a lot of the play, Liverpool's £50 million strikeforce combined to condemn Everton to defeat.
The first goal came at around the same time in the match as Mario Balotelli had notched last week at Eastlands. It was scored by an equally annoying player.
Andy Carroll, who, up until then, had barely justified a price tag of 35 pence let alone £35 million, easily stuck home a Jose Enrique cross from 6 yards out. It was harsh on Everton, who had defended so stoutly but also continued to pose an attacking threat.
The second came soon after and to rub salt into Everton wounds it was the cheating Uruguayan who added his name to the scoresheet. It was a simple finish after a mistake in the Everton defence, and one which put the game well and truly to bed.
With the result was no longer in the balance, tensions amongst Everton's incensed supporters boiled over. Plastic bottles rained down on Craig Bellamy from the Gwladys Street and Suarez was kindly thrown a 10p piece. There goes our transfer budget.
On a serious note, it is only our own club who will suffer from that type of fan behaviour and it was totally out of order.
As was the story I heard of an Evertonian singing "96 was not enough" to a Liverpool fan amongst the Evertonians. Needless to say, and regardless of anything that ever occurs on a football pitch, that - if true - is utterly, utterly despicable.
There is no place for anything like that, anywhere.
An all-round bad day at the office, then.
Everton: Howard 7, Hibbert 8, Jagielka 5, DISTIN 8, Baines 6, Coleman 5, Fellaini 7, Rodwell 6, Osman 5, Cahill 6, Saha 5.
Subs: Drenthe 4, Neville 4, Vellios 4.
Everton players had mixed fortunes with their respective loan sides this weekend.
