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It was nice to beat the blue meanies from across that big empty park where a new stadium should now be but we all know that we have serious problems off the pitch.

It's getting to the point in the Merseyside Derby these days that we might as well start off with ten-a-side to get the sendings off over with.

The tackling on the field is as nasty as the atmosphere off it these days and I can't see the city ever getting back to the days of the Friendly Derby.

There's going to be a lot of analysis about Liverpool's excellent win over Everton on Saturday with the main focus on the Reds grit and determination, even when they were down to ten men. Everton just couldn't cope and resorted to tackles that should have brought them at least two red cards earlier in the game before Pienaar was eventually, and justifiably, sent off.

It was an enthralling match with few goal scoring chances, the highlights being Gerrard's terrific free-kick from just outside the box that hit the cross-bar with Howard well beaten and Dirk Kuyt's close range, match winning, header from a perfect Gerrard corner kick. Kuyt deserves a lot a credit for his positioning and persistence on that one. Fortunately, Cahill missed a glorious opportunity to put Everton ahead at the end of the 1st half although, looking at the replay, Reina may well have had it covered.

The big controversy's of course were the sending off's, or should I say the lack of them.

We have again reached that point in the season when the City of Liverpool becomes divided and families fight amongst themselves. Today is the day when Liverpool and Everton meet in the second Merseyside derby of the season, and it was the turn of Liverpool Football Club to be the hosts.

My morning had started off well, I switched on the radio and they were setting the scene by playing both You'll Never Walk Alone and the Z Cars theme. This to me was a good omen and ensuring that I was wearing red got on my plans for the morning knowing that I had to have the radio on by 11.00 a.m for the start of the Derby day coverage. The weekly trip to Tesco's was quickly done and I was home in plenty of time. My day would now be ruled by football and I was looking forward to the Derby game.

I listened to the build up on the radio and it gave me the impression that it was going to be one of those games. Everton are in good form at the moment and also have many of their main stream players now back from injury and Liverpool appear to have woken up and realised how important it was to claim and keep fourth place. The presenters on the radio gave the impression that it was going to be anybody's game and after listening for a while decided that score was going to be 1-0

Wow! Now that was proper derby match. Tough tackles, cuts, bruises two red cards, a winning goal, what didn't it have? It was a thoroughly enjoyable game to watch, I'm just not too sure I would have liked to be on the pitch though, considering how hard some of the tackles were.

But that was good from Liverpool. They never gave up, even when they went down to 10 men. Soto was clumsy against Fellaini but in all fairness Fellaini was quite lucky to not get censured as well considering he went over Soto's ankle. The same with Pienaar, he was lucky not to get a red card for a tackle on Masch. But I have to give some credit to David Moyes here. Finally a manager when interviewed after the game says 'yeah I saw it again and Pienaar was lucky not to get sent off'. It's a far cry from Wenger who somehow didn't see a replay of the horrendous tackle by Gallas a week after the match!

But onto the game and I have to admit I initially felt that Rafa got his starting XI wrong. I would have put both Riera and Aqua in my line-up to give us some width and creativity respectively. However considering how the match went I can see why Aqua might not have been a wise choice. I still would have gone with Riera but again considering how Maxi played I guess it could have gone either way.

Here is the combined copy of the Minutes of the meeting that took place between The Sprit of Shankly and Christian Purslow. His revised answers are the last paragraph in each section.Due to a disagreement both parties issued their own set of minutes - I have combined them so that the differences in text can be seen much easier. The first responses that Christian Purslow gave are in RED and his revised minutes are in blue

The Spirit of Shankly Management Committee are disappointed that Christian Purslow has been unable to agree the minutes of the meeting that took place with him on the 21st January 2010. We have decided that to be fair to both the Club and the Union that we should put out the version that we sort agreement upon and what has been returned by Mr Purslow as his recollection of what he said - these are below.