Exclusive: 'An opportunity for Liverpool to be humbled' - Former Red shares stark Merseyside derby warning 👀

The Blues have been suffering from a poor run of form but will be hoping to turn things around against their city rivals

Stan Collymore has noted that all perceptions of a difference in quality between Liverpool and Everton will be thrown out of the window come the midweek meeting between the two sides.

Much in a similar vein to the clash with Manchester United, the two Premier League-based outfits tend to raise their game respectively to meet the challenge of what has proven to be an especially combative fixture historically.

“Yes I’d have Liverpool’s front-three to tear the Everton back four to shreds,” the 50-year-old told EOTK Insider.

“But in a derby game, Jurgen Klopp will be under no doubt, for Rafa Benitez in the Everton dressing room will be saying, 'they don't turn up here today. I was manager of this lot. We're not going to be humiliated on our own patch’.

“It’s a midweek game, three days after the last matchday. A great opportunity to get a poor result at Brentford out of your system.

“An opportunity for Liverpool to be humbled in a derby game.”

It seems a bizarre point to make when our city rivals have yet to win a game in the English top-flight since the end of September against relegation-threatened Norwich City.

[The Blues have lost five out of their last seven fixtures, drawing the remaining couple of Premier League games]

That being said, the Merseyside derby does represent a perfect, if challenging (to say the least), opportunity to reset in a game designed to bring the best out of the Toffees on their home turf.

Of course, we here at EOTK Insider would be selling Liverpool short if we failed to highlight just how deadly Jurgen Klopp’s men have looked since the return of domestic football, scoring 10 goals in three games, including two utter demolition jobs against Arsenal and Southampton.

That’s not to say Everton should be dismissed as a potential threat; Liverpool of all clubs will appreciate how big of a role our nearest rivals can play in dismantling our hopes of silverware following a disastrous long-term injury suffered by Virgil van Dijk at Goodison Park last term.

It will be highly interesting to see how the Dutch international reacts to a return to the site within which major physical (and one might imagine psychological) harm was inflicted upon his person.

Being a resounding professional, not to mention the epitome of calm, we’d expect the occasion to far from faze our No.4.

Nonetheless, the challenge we have on our hands remains two-fold: to firstly secure all three points at a tough ground and, secondly, to pass through without any major injuries incurred.

The law of averages dictates that a repeat of last season’s horrific circumstances should be unlikely, though one might expect that some fans’ nerves will be more than frayed by the encounter by the time it has been and gone.

If you’re of fan of this kind of content, all completely ad-free, then feel free to hit the subscribe button below and become an EOTK Insider. Dig into exclusive tidbits reserved only for our subscribers!