Liverpool 2-1 Everton: 5 talking points as Ekitike and Isak civil war wins

Amid a backdrop of a toneless grey sky and constant drizzle, the first Merseyside derby of the season exploded into life with hearts in mouths until the last second, as Liverpool go five for five.

Liverpool 2-1 Everton

Premier League (5) | Anfield

September 20, 2025

Goals: Gravenberch 10′, Ekitike 29′; Gueye 58′

1. Ekitike vs. Isak

There is a custom in medieval folklore where the two best warriors within a certain clan or tribe cannot exist in perfect harmony until they are on the field of battle, performing their main objective with life or death very much on the line.

Now, despite the old Bill Shankly quote, football isn’t quite that intense. But here before us, we have a very thrilling and ponderous situation regarding Hugo Ekitike and Alexander Isak.

Make no mistake about it, the recruitment department played a blinder in getting these two extraordinarily talented hitmen through the door in the same transfer window.

Both of these guys are polished athletes, serious footballers and brutal finishers. But let’s not avoid the elephant in the room, there is an internal competition burning away here. A civil war. And, to be very honest…good.

What a delight it is to have two of the most exciting forwards in European football fighting it out against each other to lead the line for the reigning champions and march into battle alongside a living legend that is Mohamed Salah.

Ekitike leaves this fixture, his first derby, as the match winner. Point proven yet again. Meanwhile, Isak is still getting up to speed and made a considerable impact of his own.

The Premier League‘s record signing isn’t just contending with the mental conundrum that he has to get up to Liverpool standard – he also has a world-class youth prospect chomping at every bit, ready to snaffle up every opportunity that he does not take with his allotted minutes.

Fierce competition makes fierce footballers, and those sort of players win the lot.

2. Liverpool’s midfield limbo

How many people saw this game slide into another 2-0 lead and thought, here we go… the demise is coming?

At times it threatened to become a reality, but 11 resolute men in Red ensured it didn’t happen.

Liverpool have started the season better than anyone else, the points return is irrefutable. But there is no getting away from the fact that this team have absolutely not been at their fluent best. It’s both a worry, yet contrastingly a confidence boost. Entering this fixture, a slightly out-of-sorts Liverpool were four for four, maximum points. That proud record continues.

Yet the first half brought an illustration of where Slot’s team appear to be wavering. The midfield department very much runs this football team – despite the searing talent in both the forward and defensive lines.

In the first 45, and for most of the match, Ryan Gravenberch was the best footballer by a country mile. The midfield clicked and ran riot. The Dutch maestro both scored and assisted as Liverpool burned white hot, with Dominik Szoboszlai looking like a reinvented man back in the middle of the park, and Alexis Mac Allister operating the strings.

Yet when Everton pulled apart this ensemble and looked to play the entire match from the flanks, Liverpool’s crown jewel central unit became skewed and the knock-on effect is almost immediately felt.

It’s early days. Top gear is very much not yet activated, but fluency and confidence in the midfield operations room means Liverpool hit that divine autopilot mode of being better than everybody else and winning football matches at a canter, without the hearts-in-mouths closing stages. We’ve seen it before, and it will return again.

For now though, three more points.

3. The new Slot

Another match, another shred of evidence that the manager is ready and willing to use the various strings available to his bow, in chopping and changing with personnel.

Unlike last season, fewer alterations are being made like-for-like. Here at Anfield we saw similar profile players traded for one another with a tactical tweak imprinted on the formation every time the fourth official’s board went up.

The intricate Florian Wirtz for the direct Cody Gakpo, a tenacious Curtis Jones for the artisan Mac Allister. Did it work and make Liverpool markedly better? Probably not. But what we’re seeing here is a slowly forming process and evidence of how the Reds will operate going forward.

Everything takes time, like it or not. At the end of last season Slot spoke about ‘adding more weapons’ and here he is using them accordingly.

In the window of time they had, both Wirtz and Isak each almost crafted nailed on goalscoring opportunities. It’s what they have been bought for, and the signs of delivery are already there.

Currently, it’s not always pretty, and still very much teething – but Liverpool leave another fixture behind with maximum spoils in the bag.

4. Conor Bradley is first choice

This season the concept of ‘first choice’ arguably doesn’t exist in many positions. It’s already abundantly clear that this will be a campaign of rotation with a best XI tailored for each specific fixture, but Conor Bradley put down a serious marker.

Up against the Premier League player of the month in Jack Grealish, Bradley went stone-cold assassin mode. Void of all emotion, rising to no bait at all, quietly and confidently got on with the task at hand.

Grealish, whatever your personal opinion of him, is a terrifying footballer to mark and track while in full flow. The playmaker has been released from the shackles at Everton, and David Moyes’ team now literally base their entire game plan around him.

Grealish put in a performance here, and would’ve won man of the match despite being on the losing side had Gravenberch not maintained his current ridiculous standards. And yet for all Grealish’s efforts, he was pinned back, tempered and nullified. Bradley ensured that no 50-50 challenge would go without impact, no marauding run untracked.

The Liverpool full-back hasn’t enjoyed a full pre-season, nor a sustained run in the side due to the arrival of Jeremie Frimpong and the versatility of Szoboszlai. Yet here again was reasonable evidence beyond all doubt that when an opposition line up with every single apple placed in the basket of one talismanic forward, Bradley is the first choice full-back for Liverpool to deal with the danger.

Think Real Madrid last season, and the public shaming of none other than Kylian Mbappe. Bradley stepped up again and deserves huge, huge plaudits for his afternoon’s work.

5. The Anfield boiling pot

This famous stadium is tense. Yet not in the best way.

Naturally so, this was a Merseyside derby and just days have passed since Liverpool marked the five-year anniversary of Diogo Jota signing for the club.

But there was something unshakable on this occasion, and it needs to soften and adapt as the campaign rockets onwards. The decibels notched – something which isn’t always a given with an early Saturday kick off in the pouring rain – but Anfield held its collective breath a little too long, and these nerves certainly permeated down across the pitch.

Perhaps it’s the inconsistency around holding a lead, or perhaps it’s the sudden presence of an array of additional world-class talent. But there is a disconnect between the Kopite roar and the belief injection into the players.

Liverpool are reigning champions and player-for-player have probably the best squad in England, but the expectance can’t be there from the first whistle for the talent on the pitch to fire the crowd into life.

It has to work the other way, and it always has worked the other way.

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