Liverpool manager Matt Beard says that the club are not thinking about revenge ahead of the latest Merseyside derby against Everton at Goodison Park on Friday evening.
The Reds lost the first derby of the season 3-0 at Anfield back in September. Everton were dominant but both sides have progressed significantly since that day.
Liverpool have the opportunity to gain revenge when the two sides renew their rivalry on Friday evening but manager Beard says that his team aren’t thinking about what has happened in the past.
“I wouldn’t say revenge,” Beard said when speaking in the pre-match press conference. “We know what this fixture means to the club and the supporters. We would love to give our supporters the bragging rights.
“I think the lessons that we learned that night at Anfield, we can definitely put into practice, but form goes out of the window in the derby games anyway.
“Everton haven’t won in the last four games and haven’t scored a goal in the last four games, but when it comes down to a Merseyside derby, I don’t think that will have any effect on it because it is the passion. I think whoever stays in control emotionally tomorrow night will end up on top.”
Reflecting further on the learnings from that Anfield defeat, Beard believes that his side will be better prepared for playing in-front of a bumper crowd this time around.
He said “I think we tried to prepare the team as best we could in a sense of going to Anfield the day before, getting familiar with the dressing room and the walk out onto the pitch. When you walk out to ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ at Anfield in front of 28,000 people, it’s completely different to what it is at Prenton Park when we’re generally getting 2,500 at the game.
“I think you could see in the first half performance, it affected us slightly. I thought second half we did a lot better, but we became too open at the back end of the game trying to chase it. It’s a catch-22 because obviously, you want to win these types of games playing in the club’s main stadium, but we’ve become too open at the back end of the game trying to chase it. The learning from that will live with us because we know what we need to do on Friday night.
“The pressure will be reversed onto Everton playing at Goodison. We’re looking forward to the occasion and I think from our perspective, we learned a lot that night. We’re looking forward to hopefully putting the wrongs of that night right on Friday.
Liverpool’s Merseyside derby fixture at Everton kicks-off at 7.30pm on Friday evening.
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