Martinez: We did enough to win

Lucas having three bookable offences but being given just the one yellow being the worst decision, there was also Skrtel knocking Jags to the ground in the box as a corner came in (I've definitely seem those given as a penalty before). Also towards the end of the game Liverpool had a foul awarded; and Coutinho took the foul quickly from a spot a good ten metres from where Barry had actually fouled him! If it wasn't for Funes Mori making a last-ditch intercept, Sturridge would have been clean through on goal. Now that would have been interesting had the RS scored.

Irony of course is when we were awarded a first-half foul (one of the few we were awarded) the ref hauled us back when we took the foul from the wrong spot.

Sometimes I wonder what the hell we have to do in derbies when there are twelve people on the pitch on the reds' side. Not surprising that the best we often get when we're the better side is a draw.

For what it's worth tactically I think Roberto did pretty well, Geri was not having a great day and needed replacing by Lennon; perhaps towards the end Gibson for McCarthy just to give us a bit more go-forward could have been an option.

Lukaku, Barry and Jags our standouts. Funes Mori too did extremely well I thought.

As for the team, I thought Funes Mori was a stand out player bearing in mind his lack of playing time with us before yesterday, and the tackle you mention saved a definite goal scoring chance for them while a lot of the players were still semi switched off expecting the ref to call play back for that free kick to be retaken. I hhought both Naismith and Lukaku deserved to score and both played well throughout the game.

It's gone on for years now and a ref' being demoted after the fact does us no favours what so ever. If they get fined it's buttons for them, so no problem there.

The thing is, his performance wasn't inept, it was blatantly biased, makes you think what agenda the FA have got as they wont do shit unless we kick up a fuss and then if successful they won't do a lot anyway. Cut from the same cloth as FIFA.

Naismith should have scored that header: that's what top 4 teams strikers do.

McCarthy must cover a lot of ground in real life than is shown on TV cos I just don't see what he brings (closes space down but offers nothing offensively... I accept he had a decent shot yesterday)

If we'd played someone right up top with Lukaku to get onto his knock-ons, we could have won.

Little creativity from the left.

Overall decent but I don't think we did enough to win. We were the better team but didn't create enough clear-cut chances.

It did seem a wee bit biased but will we ever know for sure. If Fifa is corrupt to the core then nothing would surprise me.

Rodgers getting the sack is a bit harsh, he was doing a great job. So another manager will have to spend another £100 million to keep the Red Shite where they belong, mid table just behind us.

The "Sky Four" was perfect for them - same 4 teams top 4 each year, they didn't give a shit who finished where, as long as it protected the 4 Champions League slots.

Given we can only relinquish a slot to a country that currently has 3 teams, that overtakes our co-efficient, that's quite an accomplishment. Step forward Man City...

One thing the money pouring in from broadcast rights has done is mean the chasing pack can also pounce if one of the "money" teams screws up - this really doesn't help the FA as it'll mean another team in the Champions League on a steep learning curve etc.

The only thing I can't fathom is why they persist in trying to crow-bar the RS into that top 4. We've only gone 3 years longer than them since lifting the title...

We pushed and huffed and puffed a lot in the second half but, apart from that one glimmer of goal Lukaku had on his right foot and Barkley's close shave with the curled effort, we just didn't quite possess the quality nor commit enough men to get that winner.

Sometimes I wish Ross would watch some DVDs on old Tim Cahill performances, not just against Liverpool but in general; Cahill was always in the penalty box for tap-in's, headers, or just causing a nuisance.

Barkley is our only real attacking central midfielder so he should be running in behind Lukaku more often or positioning himself where a chance may arise. Nevertheless it's a decent draw, I badly wanted to beat them but I couldn't have taken losing.

Watching the goals on Match of the Day, Tim Howard ends up almost behind the goal-line, can we start encouraging him to come out and claim balls that are in the six-yard box please!!!

I wouldn't mind but goalkeepers are a protected species as soon as they come into the melee they nearly always get a free-kick, Howard would take a hell of a lot of pressure off by doing this rather than standing there statuesque.

Fair result the draw, but please can we beat them at Anfield. It's really gone on too long.

I thought Ross was very, very good against that lot.

I'd settle for winning a trophy over beating the RS though, let's hope we pick one up this season. Then our obsession with beating them will become irrelevant.

As regards doing enough to win, no I'm with Jim. We didn't do enough to win. We huffed and puffed in the 2nd half with little or no penetration. In the last 10 minutes when we really should have been peppering the goal we just plodded along, gently probing with play that had not worked for most of the game. Think West Brom when we were searching for the winner and compare that with yesterday, the comparison is stark. We just didn't create anything of any note in that last 20 minutes.

There is no doubting the fact that we were the better team by a long way but we just didn't go that extra yard to get the win. That mental block is still there. The RS were there for the taking and we blew a golden opportunity to twist the knife.

Naismith's header: that's a tricky one, basically heading on a ball that is coming in from behind him. Many strikers would have headed it over - just as he did against Chelsea, Naismith managed to keep it down. It was a great save from Mignolet.

Even better was the save from McCarthy, who 'offers nothing offensively' according to your post! I'd certainly agree that Gibson has a better range of passing, but I don't think he's mobile enough for the derby - not starting it anyway.

And then later say "There is no doubting the fact that we were the better team by a long way".

I'm confused.

A simple question. Where is Ross Barkley's best position?

I get confused. It is entirely likely that his best position isn't necessarily his favoured position.

We did play well at times and I have to say, Lukaku played well and at times, held the ball up well and brought others into the game in better areas than he has been. I'm one of those that wants that and expects that from Rom every game cos he can do it and when he doesn't I'll admit, I hammer him cos at the end of the day, apart from goals, that's his game up there and he doesn't do it enough but yesterday he did it really well!

I thought Barkley played well as well and I get all points on him that are made, I really do. But like Jim says, and Souness before the game highlighted it as well, Barkley needs to be getting in the box more and becoming more of a goal scoring threat when playing the position that he does.

But like Ernie says, he's not that player. Barkley likes to be in and round the centre circle and the 18 yard box, either picking the ball up and running with it or getting into positions to work the shot from distance. He's not the type of player to go bursting beyond the striker and pick up on half chances or get on the end of crosses.

I see he said to Carragher he sees himself as a box to box midfielder and tbh, he is better positioned from a deeper start point, but I don't think he has the work rate or defensive discipline yet to be a box to box midfielder. You watch him and he rarely tracks back or tracks runners, doesn't close down or get himself set into position within the defensive unit when we haven't got the ball and I'm not sure if he'll ever pick that up?

Like he said also, he'll be best as a box to box CM in a midfield 3 as he knows the other 2 will do the donkey work for him going back, but then that means more responsibility on him to go forward and create and score goals, so either way, he'll have to work on certain parts of his game to improve in one area!

And a mention goes out to the back four as well, thought they all did well but especially Jagielka, Funes Mori & Galloway. The kid Galloway is just getting better by the game. Had a tough time vs City but he's come out the other side and come on in leaps and bounds! Jags looks to be back to his best and Funes Mori as stepped up to the plate since Stones as been injured. Although at the min he does seem to start games a bit slow imo, but as the game goes on he comes into his own and looks great. He looks a very solid addition already and well played to the lad!

By the time the next set of fixtures come around, we should start to see players come back and the squad/team looking more healthy and with us playing okay at the min, with competition for places we could see more improvement and hopefully we can kick on and have a good run up to the New Year!

What I believe you should be saying is the opposite.
"We didn't do enough to win"

For me I'm fed up with the same comments after every derby, we did this we did that,he played well, with a bit of luck it would have been different, the referee was biased and on and on excuse after excuse.

When are we going to win a derby on our own ground?
As of now they are crap and we still can't beat them.

Who looked like the home team in the first 20 minutes or so
It's the same every time...
If Gerard had been in their team yesterday they most likely would have won.
Totally fed up with it.

If our manager is saying that to the players then that sets the tone.
As some have said you would be better ranting and raving about the referee and having a word with your first choice keeper.

Oh well, all will be forgiven when we beat them at their place!

I don't believe his reffing was game changing, in the sense we could have won but for him, but it was absolutely shocking at some points.

That Cuntino one was the pick of the bunch, he pulls Barry back for a rolling ball and the redshite do the exact same thing but only after stealing 10 yards.

This was closely followed by the assault on Barry's head....and the daft prick tries to justify it by pointing at his fucking whistle???

Half time team talk should have consistent of one sentence.

"These are fucking shite, now go out there and twat them.", repreated over and over again.

Galloway was terrific again. The RS were dirty and the ref was very disappointing, but we didn't play like we did against Chelsea and it was mainly scrappy.

I have to say, the RS supporters were noisier than us a lot of the time and they can't have been more than 4,000 of them. Some clubs would have raised the roof to rally their team after going 1-0 down but not us. The stands are as quiet as a library except when we score.

Against West Ham last season, the noise from their fans all around the Boleyn ground was fantastic. Could the club get a group of Ultras going like they have in Poland? Check out Lech Poznan's fans on YouTube... we could do that!

There are no conspiracy theories. Atkinson is a poor referee who was determined not to send anyone off given his previous track record.

We needed to be a lot braver going forward but seemed to lack the nerve until the RS wilted in the last 10 minutes. Kone should have been on at least 20 minutes before he finally got on and we looked all the better for it.

Brenda's sacking took the magnifying glass away from our on-going poor record in these games. The RS have the psychological advantage over us regardless of form and it's worth a goal every time they play us.

Yes, I know they are only human and they can only give what they see but sometimes they need to take an extra few seconds to evaluate a situation before making a decision.

When Ross and Can clashed and both got booked, it was clearly an instigation by Can who should have been the only one booked for ungentlemanly conduct; but no, idiot Atkinson books both. Ridiculous! Too many referees are overreacting with the yellow cards these days.

What's going on in the penalty area has become a disease that the FA and/or the officials are ignoring and therefore promoting the proliferation of it. When blatant clutching and grabbing is caught on camera and apparently ''missed'' by the officials then at the very least yellow cards should be administered by the FA at a later date, just like suspensions are now.

Another day, Naismith would have got an ounce more on the ball and it would have been 1-0; another day, Ross Barkley would have placed it inside the post from an easy and uncontested position; another day, McCarthy would have caught a goalkeeper not quite so on top of his game; another day, Tim Howard would have come off his goal line and caught or punched an easy ball away [OK, that's a joke.]

For all the dismissal of Atkinson's influence, I think it was absolutely central.

I've often seen players booked for a high boot when it was pretty clear that the player booked could not have known about the presence of the player he kicked. In the case of Can, however, Barry was all over him and he just hoofed it, there was no question of it being committed unwittingly, he knew exactly what the situation was.

Second, Everton players had probably worked out that they were going to be booked for being attacked by Liverpool players, people have criticised Ross Barkley for not being fully involved, but he must have known that if he actually did anything seriously aggressive (and I don't mean a foul), he was going off.

Even Lukaku, who is probably the cleanest centre-forward I've ever seen (some would say not committed enough, but in this context I think form is significant), got booked for being attacked by some weird looking object in red.

What went on in the Liverpool penalty area was a continuous stream of pulls, pushes, hacks and bumps, none of which is legal in the manner carried out by Liverpool. And not one of which was punished.

It is not easy to play football when you know that you will be punished even if you have done nothing (McCarthy, Lukaku, Barkley), but the other side will get nothing against them for repeated, blatant and cynical fouling (Can, Lucas, Skrtel). Presumably in the Everton team there is still the memory of Rodwell's disgraceful sending off and the endless attempts to maim by Suarez.

I think we are well rid of this increasingly dodgy or perhaps I should say FIFA-esqe fixture. With referees like Clattenberg or Atkinson in the middle, Everton are not going to get anything like a fair match, and it happens just far too often not to suspect that there is more to it than bad luck.

Yeah, and I would bet that Can seen the opportunity to try and take his head off. It was meant alright judging by the way he jogged off without a care in the world.

I wonder if Barry had acted up a bit would Atkinson sent him off - probably not....

We can blame luck, good goalkeeping by the RS keeper (Naismith, McCarthy shots) but did we really test him much in the 2nd half for all our dominance? Imo, no, we didn't; and if the team is not at least testing the keeper then we really didn't do enough to win the game.

As I have said, it is really a golden opportunity missed to beat the RS because for all our superiority in the 2nd half, we just didn't do enough in the final third to win the game.

RM said we "carried more danger" in the second half yet their keeper, with the sun scorching his eyeballs, hardly had anything to do. You can't win if you don't commit and we paid the price. Sickening. Three red centre backs with only one man to mark. I thought we were going places this season and there's still plenty of time, but these half-hearted careful tactics will need to be dumped. Quick.

We really miss Stones composure, bringing the ball out of defense and not panicking under pressure, Liverpool pressed high against us on Sunday and while Jagielka and Funes Mori did fine and cleared when in danger, Stones just brings that touch of class to step out if needed and set up attacks. The other issue is not having Coleman flying up the right flank. Young Browning is a prospect but he is a center back and not a right back. He looked so uncomfortable when he crossed the halfway line.

We defended fine but we need Coleman back ASAP. Also Deulofeu was poor and I feel Coleman behind him will bring out the best in him charging up out side if him and dragging defenders away creating more space for him.

Finally Galloway is looking better and better with each game, however Baines gives us much more threat in the final third which is only natural. Again it's another attacking option that was missing at the weekend and while we wont miss it every week in tight games its the little things that get you over the line. One thing I will say is that going backwards and defending I would say he is and equal if not batter than Baines. If he continues to grow at this rate he will be a star.

On another note; who is our Goalkeeping coach? That's 2 goals in 2 games that we conceded from headers inside the 6-yard box. Howard should be clearing out everything (men and ball) in front of him to get to those crosses but he stays rooted to his line. Chances are he'd be winning free kicks if he doesn't get clear contact on the balls anyway so it's a no-brainer.

Of course Roberto did not want to lose this match. After all, it means ever so much to the supporters and it seems to the club itself. Had this have been a home game against WBA, Stoke or any other team, the team and management would not have been over-burdened by the need to avoid defeat and probably would have won.

Roberto isn't always correct but, like many other managers, he is astute enough to know what helps him and his team and what doesn't. Of course a win and everybody on here would have been over-joyed and lauding the manager with exactly the same performance as yesterday. However, a defeat and the inquest would have gone on right up to the next home fixture.

I hope we start to realise that this constant comparison to Liverpool in every aspect is counter-productive and just ensures that they are given more respect than they often deserve. Compare our neighbours and their friends down the East Lancs Road; no amount of bile, dislike and over-reaction to their results at OT has helped the other lot, has it?

Incidentally their record at that ground is abysmal in the last decade... it might be just coincidence, of course, but often the over-emphasis on the club that you are playing often results in defeat or at best a draw. It's not only the responsibility of the manager for that psychology; it's the whole club, including us as fans.

Has anyone even mentioned his dive outside the context of the referee's performance?

That's him and McCarthy in the last two games on top of his dive last year against West Ham.

For the record, I think Atkinson had a bad game but as usual it wasn't the case that he was conspiring against the Blues.

I don't like our players diving either, but Lucas cynically tripped a player, who he missed a tackle on, who was driving into space with attackers ahead of him, in full view of the ref.

The ref "missed" the important decisions. Perhaps it was "bad luck" that those decisions affected us, but I felt he bottled the decisions which did affect us. In the first half he continually blew for innocuous challenges we made and allowed the shite far more leniency.

Poor ref for us on the day.

But he definitely should have booked Barkley for kicking the ball away. Had that been a Liverpool player the crowd and Tofffeweb masses would have lost the plot.

He missed the dive too.

Like I said, he was poor. My point is that he didn't target Everton. He was just bad.

Brian #36, fair point on Coleman but these are two make or break games so I hope Martinez sees that side of it although I wouldn't blame him if he didn't.

No you didn't. Unless I'm mistaken, the rules of Association Football stipulate that to win a match within a 90 minute period (plus time added on for injuries) you have to score more goals than the opposition team.

I'm pretty sure both teams managed to cross the goal line with the ball only once each, which makes this statement completely untrue, and a fabrication of the highest order.

Worrying.

The back six is superb at the moment, giving little away and making us difficult to beat. We'll win more than we'll lose, but if we're going to push on, we need to find some extra quality or a better mix of player when we attack.

We're nearly there but not yet.

I'm not being negative but realistic.

There was a reason we never had anyone in the box! Martinez needs to change that style when we should be going for the win.

This is becoming a mental scar.

By today's big girl blouse rules, Barkley deserved his yellow.

On that note, I think the Premier League should have a Big Girl's Blouse of the year competition. The nominees so far are Gabriel and Sakho.

I've no doubt there'll be many, many more to come.

After they twirled, Barkley pushed Can in retaliation which is a yellow card.

I'll call my own taxi....

I went the game, haven't watched any replays, so might've missed the Barkley incidents close up, but I left Goodison totally frustrated by Martin Atkinson, once again.

If the most we can ask for is consistency for both teams, then he failed miserably in my opinion. I honestly think Atkinson hates Everton, but I might be paranoid. How can he let Coutiniho take that free kick near the end, when he pulled McCarthy up 15 minutes before, citing the same moving ball??

I've honestly never seen this mans demeanour ever change, and would genuinely sooner have Clattenberg ref Everton.

Rom bullied them, Jags and Galloway were outstanding and most of our lads were up for it. Unfortunately for us Deulofeu wasn't at the races and Naisy was quiet, but we had enough on the bench to make up for this and ram it up them.

An opinion is only worth considering if both sides of the argument are mentioned. There's hardly been a mention of the McCarthy and Barkley dives on here yet if it was the other way around we'd have threads about it.

Now you might say that this comes with the territory as it's an Everton based website but I don't accept that. Plenty go on about how special our club is but yet we seem passive to that type of behaviour.

On the ref, I recall the free-kick taken from the wrong place and the Lucas incident which he certainly got wrong. I also recall Barkley's dive and kicking the ball away. No other major issues remain in my memory.

Everton should be protesting his assignment, based on a litany of errors. But they're not going to, and so nothing will change, sadly.

Shane that decision was worse than the Lucas, one in someways. It smacked of smugness and arrogance, and only for a last gasp interception could have caused a riot.