Everton’s logic-defying derby leveller reminds us football cannot be tamed

Tarkowski’s goal against Liverpool didn’t undo the mistakes of the past but Goodison sure embraced the madness

Everton's James Tarkowski (centre) celebrates scoring a late equaliser against Merseyside rivals Liverpool

Before the actual ending, and then the melee that followed the ending, there was the original ending. The studio cut. The official’s board goes up to indicate five minutes of injury time. Vitalii Mykolenko puts a cross straight out of play. Jarrad Branthwaite and Carlos Alcaraz run into each other and bang heads. Tim Iroegbunam smashes a shot into the Gwladys Street End, and almost into Gwladys Street itself. The Liverpool fans are singing about winning the league at Goodison Park. Quite a few people are leaving.

And let’s be honest here: this would also have been a fitting way for the last Goodison Park derby to end. Certainly it would have felt truer to where Everton and Liverpool are right now, at the start of 2025, a park and an ocean between them. Everton make noises, run hard, crack their whips; Liverpool shoot them in the face. Before the game, the Opta supercomputer simulated this fixture 10,000 times and gave Liverpool a 60% chance of winning. As the clock ticks over to 97 minutes, the Opta supercomputer is doing victory laps of the office and taking high-fives.