Liverpool vs Everton LIVE: Premier League result and final score after Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo goals

The video assistant referee (VAR) due to oversee the Merseyside derby and Arsenal’s crunch clash with Manchester City has been replaced after wrongly ruling out a Brighton and Hove Albion goal this weekend.

Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), the body responsible for match officials in English football, has confirmed that John Brooks will no longer be on duty for the two fixtures this week.

Brooks incorrectly drew offside lines when ruling on Pervis Estupinan’s apparent opener, with James Tomkins wrongly identified as the Crystal Palace defender closest to his own goal when Marc Guehi appeared to be deeper than his teammate.

The only player to have scored more than one league goal for Liverpool since the World Cup is Leicester’s Wout Faes, who netted two own goals in a 2-1 defeat at Anfield on 30 December

Everton’s Abdoulaye Doucoure is one shy of 200 Premier League appearances and should reach that landmark when he lines up for the Toffees later tonight.

Uefa bears “primary responsibility” for the chaotic scenes before last season’s Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid in Paris, with Uefa’s own report into the events at the Stade de France set to conclude it was “remarkable” that no supporters lost their lives.

The independent report into the Champions League final is set to clear Liverpool fans of any wrongdoing, instead placing the blame squarely on Uefa and the French authorities.

The report is set to be published on Tuesday and Liverpool said they were “hugely disappointed” that it had been leaked to several media organisations following an eight-month investigation. The club added: “We will await to receive a copy of the report and digest it thoroughly before making any further comment.”

Just two of the 22 individual managers to have taken charge of Everton in a Merseyside league derby have won their first meeting with Liverpool: Joe Royle in November 1994 and Dick Molyneux in October 1894.

Will Sean Dyche become the third?

Victory would give Jurgen Klopp his 250th win as Liverpool manager (93 draws, 71 losses), with matches settled by penalty shoot-outs classified as draws.

Klopp is also one shy of eight Premier League wins in Merseyside derbies, which would equal Rafael Benitez’s record.

Jurgen Klopp’s ability to coin a phrase has been a constant during his seven years at Liverpool. His toughest season has posed him problems when he has search for explanations for a slump few foresaw. “You cannot explain similar 500 mistakes in a different way or new mistakes,” he said. Five hundred mistakes in a different way: it could be the title of Liverpool’s end-of-season DVD.

It is not merely the shift to streaming that means such a product will never be made. The mistakes would make for unwelcome viewing; some, as Klopp suggested, have the feel of action replays. There have been recurring themes: when Liverpool went 2-0 down in 12 minutes at Molineux, it extended a habit of conceding first and early. Wolves may not have even been their worst performance of 2023: not when Brentford and Brighton are factored in.

There have been slow starts and false dawns, injuries and more injuries. There have been patched-up teams and disjointed displays. There have been problems in the midfield with most of the myriad combinations Klopp has tried. There have been repeated reasons to regret a failure or inability to buy in the centre of the pitch and stuttering starts from the forwards he has acquired. From Trent Alexander-Arnold to Fabinho, from Joel Matip to Jordan Henderson, there have been talismen who have run into troubled times, overachievers who have become underachievers, starters who have been substitutes at times.

Jurgen Klopp has managed Liverpool in this fixture multiple times and knows how intense the game can be. He’s seen highs and lows during this derby and says that his players will give everything to get the win.

Writing in his programme notes Klopp said: “This is a derby so we need to fight with everything we have but only in a positive way. We have to fight to play football and nothing else. This is a game for passion but it can only ever be used in the right way. Nothing else makes sense.

“I have said before that sometimes these matches can be too intense and I know this isn’t always what people want to hear, but it is true. Intensity is a part of what we do and the reality is that we could not do anything without it, but we have to bring our other qualities too or else we will just make a difficult fixture even harder.

“Our form going into tonight is not what we would want it to be and we are as aware of this as anyone. I have no doubt that Everton will look at us and think that we are not in our finest moment because that is true, but it is up to us to fix that and no-one else.

Sean Dyche can become the fourth Everton manager to win his first two Premier League matches in charge of the club, after Joe Royle (who won each of his opening three), David Moyes and Carlo Ancelotti.

Jurgen Klopp makes two changes to the Liverpool team that lost to Wolves last week. Jordan Henderson and Fabinho come into the starting line-up with Naby Keita and Thiago Alcantara dropping out.

Diogo Jota, Virgil van Dijk and Roberto Firmino are all named on the bench.

Sean Dyche makes just one change to the Everton team that defeated Arsenal 1-0 in his first match in charge. Ellis Simms comes in to replace Dominic Calvert-Lewin who’s injury keeps him out of the squad.