Liverpool 2-0 Everton: Mo Salah and Cody Gakpo strike to ease the pressure on Reds boss Jurgen Klopp

One hit and run and one mugging and Liverpool had this Merseyside derby won.

Jurgen Klopp’s team were superior by a comfortable distance to an unambitious Everton side. If Sean Dyche, the new Everton manager, hoped Liverpool’s poor form would help his team here he was desperately wrong. 

Liverpool made all the running, played all the football and scored all of the goals.

The first, just before half-time, came from a lightning raid. Everton hit a post — their only meaningful chance of the game — and Liverpool fled the scene to score spectacularly and thrillingly in front of the Kop through Mo Salah. 

End to end in 15 seconds. Wow.

Mo Salah scored his first goal this year to put Liverpool ahead in the 36th minute

Then, early in the second period, Everton’s Alex Iwobi was relieved of the ball by three Liverpool players and had barely climbed to his feet by the time Klopp’s team had sped away to provide Cody Gakpo with his first Liverpool goal in front of an Everton away support beginning to recognise the unfolding of a familiar horror show.

Liverpool will face better opponents than this but should nevertheless be encouraged. There was much here that was good. 

Darwin Nunez provided Salah with his goal and was a buccaneering threat all evening. Captain Jordan Henderson led his team with courage and energy. 

In the second half, once the second goal was secured, Liverpool attacked with some of the cavalier confidence of old.

Everton? Well let’s just say these are not the games they will have to win if they are to stay up and it’s just as well. 

Dyche’s team were never really an attacking presence. Had James Tarkowski’s header gone in just before Liverpool’s goal, Klopp’s players may have panicked. But that feels like a slender straw to cling to after a night when they were outplayed and outrun all over the field.

For much of the opening half it was a derby with plenty of snap and crackle but not much pop. 

Liverpool sought to force the pace and tried to rediscover some of that furious energy that once ran through them like water. 

Everton, on the other hand, stuck men behind the ball and tried to play longer passes and get up in support of lone forward Ellis Simms.

At times Simms must have felt like a lone tree buffeted by a storm, such was his isolation. Despite having impressed on loan at Sunderland this season, this was a huge step up in what was only his second Premier League game. 

Darwin Nunez crossed the ball into the box for Salah to knock the ball past Jordan Pickford

For a long time, much of what happened just passed him by.

Liverpool were still not the Liverpool we thought we knew, though. The instinctive understanding of the right pass, the right time to shoot, the right moment to take a chance is not theirs at the moment.

There remains a will to improve and to dominate, however, and on the back of the example set by Henderson and the selfless running of Nunez, Liverpool’s football was enough to see them dominate much of the opening half. 

Having said that, the opening goal came from a counter-attack as Liverpool struck ruthlessly after Everton had hit the post with pretty much their only meaningful effort on goal of the first half.

Cody Gakpo made it 2-0 with his first goal since joining the Reds after half time

Having just weathered a period of pressure, Everton won a corner on the left in the 36th minute. When it dropped on the forehead of Tarkowski at the far post, the defender looked certain to add to the goal he scored in Dyche’s first game in charge at home to Arsenal.

This time, though, the ball came back off the upright as Tarkowski headed it back across goal and when Dwight McNeil’s follow-up was cleared by a mass of red bodies, Liverpool were in business.

How many times have we seen Liverpool break upfield like this? Certainly better teams than Everton have suffered at the hands of a Klopp team on the charge.

Here Nunez collected the ball on the edge of his own penalty area and swapped passes with Salah before setting off down the left.

With Everton outnumbered, Nunez had two men in the centre to aim at. The ball may well have reached Gakpo and it was the Dutch forward who Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford seemed to have his focus on. Salah was the one who reached it first, however, and with Pickford out of position he side-footed into an empty goal from 12 yards or so.

It was a classic Anfield moment, a fire and brimstone goal. In an instant all of Everton’s hard work had been undone.

Before that Dyche’s team held Liverpool at bay. Nunez had cut in well from the left, while one of his volleys gave Gakpo a chance that he headed wide. The goal, though, changed the dynamic.

When Liverpool stole possession in the 49th minute they burst upfield in sensational fashion to score their second. Alex Iwobi was robbed by three Liverpool players and when Andy Robertson tore upfield to feed Salah, possession was funnelled to Trent Alexander-Arnold and his low cross to the far post was shovelled in by Gakpo.

Liverpool secured a much-needed win for Jurgen Klopp in the Merseyside derby

Once again, Everton were culpable. This time it was Conor Coady who erred in allowing the cross to pass uninterrupted within his range. Did he not know Gakpo was waiting behind him?

For the next 20 minutes or so, it was all Liverpool. Everton replaced Simms with Demarai Gray but it made no difference as play flowed one way. Nunez was denied by Pickford and then Salah was, too.

Everything was going right for Klopp and he had even more cheer when forwards Diogo Jota and Roberto Firmino returned from injury off the bench.

Everton chairman Bill Kenwright (L) and non executive director Graeme Sharp (R) watch on

Hollywood star Will Ferrell turned up at Anfield after trips to Man City and Wrexham