The Toffees will be fighting against history as well as Liverpool on Monday night.
With one win in their last 13 Premier League games against them from down the road – one in nine at Goodison Park – Ronald Koeman’s Everton need all the help they can get against Liverpool in Monday’s latest Merseyside derby.
It does not help that the Toffees have spent the last few weeks embroiled in a sticky spot prior to a dramatic win against Arsenal while Liverpool, barring a recent blip, have played the most consistently exciting football in the division.
Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta found the target the last time Everton tasted sweet success against their Stanley Park neighbours back in 2010 and, with so many of their players yet to sample a victory in this most historic of rivalries, could Ronald Koeman turn to a man who, unlike most of his squad, has history when it comes to vanquishing the Reds?
Enner Valencia’s impact at Goodison Park may have been minimal to say the least, zero goals in 168 minutes of Premier League action suggests accusations of the deadline day signing being a ‘panic buy’ are not wide of the mark, but could the Ecuadorian’s recent record against Liverpool convince Koeman to hand him successive top flight starts for the first time in Everton blue?
After all, Valencia played from the whistle on both occasions as former club West Ham twice emerged triumphant over Jurgen Klopp’s side in 2016; a 2-0 Premier League win on the second day of the year followed up by a narrow FA Cup fourth-round triumph a month later.
Valencia may not have got his name on the score sheet on either occasion, but his direct running and jet-pack leap proved a menace to a Liverpool defence who, as everybody but Klopp seems to accept, is rather lacking in reliability.
Therefore, with Kevin Mirallas, Gerard Deulofeu, Aaron Lennon and Ross Barkley either out-of-favour or out-of-form, Koeman could do worse than to turn to a player who knows what it takes to defeat Everton’s dominant neighbours.
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