Lukaku salvages point for Toffees

Posted Monday, October 05, 2015 by Foxsports.com

Romelu Lukaku's strike cancelled out Danny Ings' header as Everton and Liverpool shared the points in the 225th Merseyside derby at Goodison Park on Sunday.

Romelu Lukaku's strike cancelled out Danny Ings' header as Everton and Liverpool shared the points in the 225th Merseyside derby at Goodison Park on Sunday afternoon.

Everton 1 Liverpool 1
Tempers flared throughout
Ings heads Reds into lead
Lukaku levels scores
Tough tackling limited chances

Match Summary

Everton only have themselves to blame for going behind four minutes before half-time as some shoddy defending resulted in the diminutive Danny Ings scoring with a free header from close range to hand Liverpool the lead.

Another defensive blunder, this time from Emre Can, gifted Everton an equaliser as the German shanked his clearance straight to Lukaku, who blast home to equalise one minute into first-half injury time.

Full Report

It was a brisk start to the game at Goodison Park as Liverpool began the brighter of the two sides, but were unable to capitalise on their early advantage, with neither side able to create any meaningful chances in the first 20 minutes.

The first real chance of the game fell to James Milner in the 26th minute after the midfielder was played in on the right hand side by Phil Coutinho, but he couldn't squeeze his low shot past Tim Howard.

Everton hit back immediately and Steven Naismith forced a fantastic save out of Simon Mignolet with a header from a Ross Barkley free-kick in the 28th minute.

Two minutes later, Mignolet again had to be at his best to deny James McCarthy's snap shot with a diving save.

Tempers flared in the 34th minute when Barkley and Can squared up to each other, with both being shown a yellow card by referee Martin Atkinson.

Liverpool took the lead shortly in the 41st minute after some very poor defending from a corner left Ings in acres of space to head home from close range.

Lukaku couldn't believe his luck as, in first-half stoppage time, Can mishit an attempted clearance straight to the Belgian hitman and he made no mistake from six yards out to level the scores.

Spurred on by their late equaliser, Everton began strongly in the second half, but some tough tackling limited the ability of both sides to create meaningful opportunities.

Aaron Lennon went closest to breaking the deadlock in the second half for Everton, but his stinging shot in the 71st minute was well saved once again by the impressive Mignolet, as the bitter rivals shared the spoils after a niggly second period that failed to live up to the hype of the first half.