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Jamie Carragher has given his take on how David Moyes should play against Liverpool today, with Arne Slot's team coming off the back of a Wednesday game in the Champions League against Atletico Madrid.
Especially at home, Liverpool is a huge favorite to beat Everton on paper. But the derby can often be a leveler, even if Moyes is yet to win a game at Anfield with any of the teams he has managed in his career.
"The balance of power is in Liverpool’s favor now," Carragher wrote for The Telegraph. "But many Everton supporters will say they would rather take a risk by 'having a go' at Anfield with attacking weapons like Jack Grealish and Illian Ndiaye, rather than sitting back, trying to win on the counter-attack and suffering a familiar fate.
"Liverpool had a tiring European match in midweek and a 12.30pm (7.30am ET) Saturday kick-off can make them more vulnerable.
"Too many recent Anfield derbies have followed the same pattern, with Everton trying to defend for 90 minutes in the hope of earning a draw, or snatching victory from a set-piece. A couple of draws and one win in lockdown aside, it has failed for the past 26 years.
"Moyes might be encouraged by such growing positivity from his fan base that a different plan might work. He will also be wary of it.
"For a manager assessing the best approach in an away game against the champions, a side who will relish a team attacking them, it is a choice between the logical and the romantic. My suspicion is Moyes will stick to the former."
Arne Slot is expecting a tough game and some of his players are yet to experience what a derby atmosphere is like.
"I have experienced the away game as something different than something I’ve experienced before than all the other away games we’ve played, but Newcastle away felt similar for me as Everton away last season," Slot said in his press conference.
"It is not for the first time we play this [type of] game and for the new ones it’s not the first time they play in circumstances where there is a lot of rivalry, a lot of intensity in the game, a lot of tackles being made.
"But I think yes, the focus should be on the rivalry but should also be on what we need to do to win that game and that is being intense, that is winning the duels but that is definitely also going to be playing good on the ball and playing good when we don’t have the ball, be intense. It’s again going to be a difficult game because they have many good players.
"I don’t know exactly what they are going to do — is it going to be like last season when we faced a lot of long balls, while this season I have seen them playing out from the back many times very well.
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"Maybe also because they have brought in some very talented players that can play both styles. So we have to prepare them for that and of course maybe Virgil [van Dijk], Mo [Salah] and these kind of players will tell the new ones what they can expect.
"But we are not talking about rookies, it’s not like these players play for the first time in a full stadium or for a first time in these kind of games.
"If you talk about Florian [Wirtz], he has played so many special games in his career already and I can come up with all the others as well. Yes, it’s special but it is not miles off other special games they have played."
Liverpool.com says: Everton is likely to sit in and try to counter at Anfield, with the likes of Grealish good weapons on the break. However, Virgil van Dijk and his defense should be able to cope, and it will be up to the Liverpool attack to find a way through.
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