Mo Salah opened the scoring for Liverpool in his final Merseyside derby, and his goal owed plenty to a sublime piece of play in the lead-up.
The Egyptian drilled a low first-time shot beyond Jordan Pickford from close range, having ghosted in behind Vitaliy Mykolenko to get on the end of a brilliant through ball from Cody Gakpo which penetrated a gap in the Everton defence.
The goal came just two minutes after the Toffees thought they’d had the lead through Iliman Ndiaye, only for his strike to be disallowed after a VAR review deemed Jake O’Brien to have been offside in the build-up.
Gakpo praised for assist for Salah goal
Salah will understandably get the headlines for his cool finish, but much of the credit must also go to Liverpool’s number 18 for the quality of the assist, something that Chris Sutton acknowledged.
He said in co-commentary for Sky Sports: “What about the pass! The spot from Gakpo and the weight of the pass is absolutely stunning. Salah isn’t going to miss from there.”
Assist capped a strong first half from Gakpo
Gakpo has been heavily criticised for some of his performances this season, and there have been too many games where the Dutchman has played nowhere near his best, with Stephen Warnock lamenting him as ‘predictable‘.
However, his pass to pick out Salah for the opening goal in the derby was inch-perfect, and the scorer acknowledged as much in the celebrations afterwards.
It’s a second Premier League game in a row in which the 26-year-old has claimed an assist, having also set up the Egyptian to score against Fulham last weekend, and hopefully it hints at a resurgent final few weeks of the campaign for the Netherlands international.
Shortly before half-time, Gakpo unleashed a decent strike which forced a good save out of Pickford as he sought to get on the scoresheet for the first time since the end of February.
Hopefully (at the time of writing) our number 18 can continue his thus far energetic performance into the second half of this game, and into Liverpool’s remaining matches of the season.
You can view Salah’s goal against Everton below, via @SkySportsPL on X:
Moments after Iliman Ndiaye's goal was ruled out, Mohamed Salah gives Liverpool the lead in the Merseyside derby 😱 pic.twitter.com/UgNLj0l8cq
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) April 19, 2026
I watched the game and for the most part we were poor, Everton won every tackle, duels, second balls.
But when you win a mersyside derby you take the win, the performance means nothing.
What can Liverpool supporters take out of this season. Is there any hope for next season under the same people who haven’t been good enough this season. Slot, Hughes and FSG who will now tighten the purse stings for the next five years.
Can we ever beat crystal palace who are next?
How did we lose against wolves?
PSG? Liverpool football club have never been so far away from an opponent. In the history of our club, the gulf was enormous. I wonder what shankly, paisley would make of it. We looked like a non league team playing in the premier league. If that’s what you call improvement after spending 450 million, god help us. Beaten by what we were under shankly, our game, passing and movement. Never seen any Liverpool team in 50 year’s so outclassed.
Then there’s the drubbing by Manchester city, the biggest loss in the fa cup in 70 years
The performance against Brighton in a 2-1 loss
We couldn’t beat spurs at home when they had 13 players out.
The defeat against Bournemouth.
All the late goals conceded, never seen any Liverpool team in 50 years be so inept at late goals.
The 3 nil defeat at Anfield by forest.
The defeats against palace in the league cup, Manchester United at home, brentford, Chelsea.
Any owners who are content with this season should be booted out as far away from Anfield as possible.
Some of the performances this season are championship football. Not premier league.
No Ambition, no klopp, no future with charlatan owners FSG. The rot has set. We are now in terminal decline. Get rid of FSG or watch on paying more for less with mediocrity.