This is a fascinating insight into the Liverpool derby.
Much like fellow Sky Sports colleague Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher has won many new fans since hanging up his boots and taking up the football punditry for a living. He remains unashamedly affiliated towards his beloved Liverpool Football Club, but has shown himself to be even-handed, fair and admirably unbiased in his punditry of the game. Plus he gets annoyed by Jamie Redknapp and we can all relate to that.
His objectivity is perfectly apparent in a thought-provoking and insightful chat with Everton supporters’ channel Grand Old Team TV. We featured part 1 here, and part 2 is every bit as fascinating. This instalment focuses more acutely on the Merseyside derby, and includes a seemingly trivial anecdote that tells you so much about the difference in mentality between Liverpool and Everton players in recent years.
Carragher admits that Ronald Koeman’s Everton are increasingly becoming a force to be reckoned with on Merseyside, and that Liverpool should be wary of their great city rivals finally getting their shit together. But he also recalls a sobering anecdote from his derby days that may make some Toffees’ fans cringe. He recounts how the Everton players would act towards him prior to kick-off.
“A big thing for Koeman is he’s got to change the mentality of the club, the players and even the supporters, in terms of derby games… I think Everton go into the derby game expecting to lose – I think the players do. There’s that feeling: ‘Oh we can’t beat Liverpool because the referee will give them something…’, there’s that negative mentality.
“Just a little thing. When you shake hands before the game, I’d be like a lunatic, steam coming out of my ears, wanting to [international sign for get stuck in], and the [Everton] players would be saying hello and ‘Hiya Carra!’ I’d be thinking, the game’s kicking off in a minute, why are you even saying my name? Why are you even speaking to me?
“I wasn’t saying ‘Alright Ossie’ or ‘Alright Hibbo’ or ‘Alright Leighton’, I was like… I already thought we had the advantage. It’s like a boxer coming out and wanting to shake hands with the other boxer, and it’s like ‘No! I wanna punch ya!”
“I never felt that they were as aggressive or as nasty as us – in the nicest possible way – about winning those games. I always felt we had the advantage mentally and physically… I always felt that was strange.”
As the shocked GOT interviewer quite rightly responds, that has got to change.
