It was a good day for Liverpool, no matter your color. Everton beat Fulham 3-1 at Craven Cottage and the red half of Merseyside went top of the league with a dominant 4-nil win over Spurs at Anfield.
Fulham 1 - Everton 3
Fulham equalized with a superb goal from Ashkan Dejagah in the second half, but substitutes Kevin Mirallas and Steven Naismith made the difference with two late goals to take the 3 points for Everton.
Everton is in a very good run of form, winning their last 5 matches. The Toffees are now just 4 points behind Arsenal for 4th place, with a game in hand. Everton hosts limping Arsenal (the Gunners have merely taken 2 points from their last 3 matches) at Goodison this Sunday. Having drawn against a much healthier and stronger Arsenal side at the Emirates early in the season, Everton will be a very difficult opponent for the Gunners next weekend.
Manager Roberto Martinez has his team playing extremely well, but for me, the most interesting aspect of this season's race for fourth place is Everton's Belgian attacker, Mirallas. Two years ago, it was widely reported that both Arsenal and Everton had bids accepted for Mirallas, and that Mirallas chose to play for Everton over Arsenal after consulting with his countryman Marouane Fellaini. A year later, Fellaini is gone, Everton only looks better without him, and Mirallas's explosive pace and clinical finishing has been a problem for opposing defenses all season. Given Arsenal's woeful lack of attacking options (especially the lack of fast attacking options after Walcott's injury) one can only wonder how different both team's seasons would look had Mirallas decided to play in North London instead.
Liverpool 4 - Spurs 0
Amid strong rumors that Louis Van Gaal was poised to take Tim Sherwood's job this summer, the Spurs manager got his setup all wrong today, opting to play an attacking 4-1-4-1 with Nacer Chadli and Gylfi Sigurdsson centrally and Eriksen on the wing. Frankly Sherwood has done nothing to suggest he deserves to keep the job, as Spurs were horrible at Anfield, and have only managed to take 1 point against the top 4 teams this season.
Defensive mistakes from Younes Kaboul and Michael Dawson led to 2 Liverpool goals in the first half. But Spurs struggled to create anything the entire match. And Liverpool were unlucky not to score more.
I must say I am astonished by Liverpool's performance this season. I did not foresee Gerrard adapting to a defensive midfield role as well as he has, Jordan Henderson and Daniel Sturridge improving as much as they have, and I thought that the Liverpool defense would never be good enough to win anything with players like John Flanagan playing a majority of the matches.
Liverpool has many players with pace, and they take full advantage of that pace by spreading their players out and constantly switching the ball to keep the opposing defense from organizing themselves in a compact way. But in Suarez they possess a true talisman. A player who makes everyone around him better. A player who can turn games in his team's favor single-handedly. And a player who has finally matured, it seems.
Much like with Mirallas, watching Suarez makes the Arsenal supporter in me think of what might have been. Not just because Arsenal refused to pay over 40 million pounds for the want-away Suarez last summer, but also what might have been had the Gunners taken as ambitious a stance as Liverpool when confronted with a similar situation with Robin van Persie two summers ago.
Refusing to allow Suarez to join an English rival upped the stakes for Liverpool this summer. It was a clear signal of their ambition. An indication that Liverpool believed they could defy the odds and win something this season. That belief has permeated from the top-down, and Liverpool now have the title in their hands with just 6 games remaining. The Premier League is theirs to lose.
I can only admire their ambition.
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