1) Toffees can take heart from derby defeat
There is a reason Everton are third-bottom in the league: they’ve been the league’s third-worst team. With just six games remaining, they are in serious danger of breaking the English game’s second-longest run of top-flight football – only Arsenal have stuck it out longer than their 68 years. Despite a difficult run-in, Frank Lampard can take heart from how his team played at Anfield: organised and doughty in defence, enterprising and swift in attack – a spirit encapsulated by a contretemps towards the end of the first half when, after Abdoulaye Doucouré fouled Fabinho to get play stopped so Richarlison could receive treatment, almost the entire team piled into the kerfuffle, including goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. Obviously there is more to football than aggression and if, over the course of the season, Everton had shown as much as they did on Sunday, they’d not be in the mess they are. But similarly, if they can maintain it, they might yet save themselves. Daniel Harris
