Liverpool continued their stranglehold over local rivals Everton to go top of the Premier League on Saturday, but had fortune on their side as Mohamed Salah\u2019s double secured a 2-0 win at Anfield.<\/p>\n
Everton were left furious at the inconsistency of referee Craig Pawson as Ashley Young was sent-off seven minutes before half-time for two bookable offences, while Ibrahima Konate escaped a second booking in the second-half with the scores still level.<\/span><\/p>\n Liverpool toiled to make their man advantage count, but finally achieved the breakthrough 15 minutes from time when Salah smashed home from the penalty spot after Michael Keane handled.<\/span><\/p>\n Salah was then teed up by Darwin Nunez to make the points safe seven minutes into stoppage time.<\/span><\/p>\n Victory takes Jurgen Klopp\u2019s men above Tottenham and Arsenal at the top of the table on goal difference.<\/span><\/p>\n The Reds have lost just one of their last 29 Merseyside derbies and remain unbeaten at Anfield in front of a crowd against Everton since 1999.<\/span><\/p>\n No fixture has had more red cards in the Premier League era that clashes between these two and another sending off proved decisive.<\/span><\/p>\n Everton had frustrated the hosts and posed a threat themselves until the 38-year-old Young showed his age rather than his experience by diving in to chop down Luis Diaz and earn a second yellow card.<\/span><\/p>\n Young had previously made a brilliant last-ditch challenge to deny Diaz a certain goal.<\/span><\/p>\n At the other end, Dominic Calvert-Lewin powered an early header too close to Alisson Becker.<\/span><\/p>\n Klopp had expressed his frustration at being selected for the Saturday lunchtime kick-off just hours after some of his stars returned after playing for their countries in South American World Cup qualifying.<\/span><\/p>\n Colombia\u2019s Diaz and Argentina\u2019s Alexis Mac Allister started, while Nunez was introduced off the bench after his starring role in Uruguay\u2019s 2-0 win over Brazil in midweek.<\/span><\/p>\n Liverpool looked jaded despite having the extra man in the second-half.<\/span><\/p>\n Everton boss Sean Dyche introduced Keane at half-time to revert to a back five and the visitors restricted Liverpool to few clear chances to the frustration of the home support.<\/span><\/p>\n The Toffees were then stunned that Konate was not also given his marching orders as he pulled down Beto after being shown a yellow card.<\/span><\/p>\n To rub salt in Everton wounds, Klopp immediately replaced the Frenchman with Joel Matip and Dyche saw a yellow card for taking his protests too far.<\/span><\/p>\n Liverpool have had their own troubles with officials of late after Diaz had a goal in their only defeat of the season at Tottenham last month wrongly ruled out following VAR confusion.<\/span><\/p>\n However, this time VAR came to their rescue as Diaz\u2019s cross struck Keane\u2019s outstretched arm.<\/span><\/p>\n After a pitch-side review, the referee pointed to the spot and Salah scored his seventh goal of the season to muted celebrations.<\/span><\/p>\n The Egyptian posted an emotional video on his social media channels on Wednesday calling for an end to \u201cmassacres\u201d in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.<\/span><\/p>\n As Everton pushed forward in search of an equaliser, they were caught on the counter-attack deep into stoppage time as Nunez timed his pass to Salah perfectly for a simple finish.<\/span><\/p>\n AFP.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Liverpool continued their stranglehold over local rivals Everton to go top of the Premier League on Saturday, but had fortune on their side as Mohamed Salah\u2019s double secured a 2-0 win at Anfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16122,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[223,4026,828,5163],"class_list":["post-16121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-epl","tag-everton","tag-liverpool","tag-mo-salah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16123,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16121\/revisions\/16123"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}