Torres' Clinical Touch Kills Off Everton

David Moyes keeps saying Everton are edging closer to the top four with each passing year but results keep insisting otherwise.

Liverpool won the 208th Merseyside derby more comfortably than the score might suggest, Fernando Torres's reliable finishing consigning Everton to a third successive home defeat in the league - they will enter October without picking up a single point at Goodison - and leaving Moyes still waiting to join Harry Catterick and Howard Kendall as the only Blue managers to win three times against the old enemy. The fact Rafa Benitez has already won six derbies in a shorter time shows the reality of Everton's position.

Results do not tell the whole story though and the feeling persists that Moyes has only himself to blame for not winning more games against big clubs. He left Louis Saha on the bench here at the start and sent out his team with five midfielders and Yakubu on his own up front, a strategy that looked more like an attempt to avoid defeat than secure victory, especially as the solo striker seemed unhappy in the role and wasted much of his limited service by flinging himself to the floor in search of free-kicks. Referee Mike Riley booked him for diving in the second half after he had beaten Martin Skrtel and got himself into a position where a shot at goal might have brought a better reward. All too predictably Moyes decided to send Saha on when Everton went a goal down, but by the time the substitute took the field the home side had shipped another and the cause was lost.

Joe Royle used to say the ball was an optional extra for the first hour or so of a Merseyside derby and that the only chance of any football was when the fighting had stopped. Liverpool adopted exactly the sort of patient approach that was required, waiting until all the sound and fury had died down then picking Everton's pocket with two clinically taken goals in three minutes. The visitors hardly threatened Tim Howard's goal in the first half, yet once Torres struck Everton's confidence evaporated to the extent that Liverpool could have ended up winning by three or four. After failing to score since the opening day of the season Torres himself could have had a hat-trick, he had the ball in the net in the 68th minute as well but was recalled by a linesman.

'You really need to use your brain in these type of games' said Benitez, who famously took Steven Gerrard off in the same fixture last season for playing with too much passion. 'Of course passion is important in a derby, but you win with your brain and with your muscles as well.' Gerrard did not manage his 100th Liverpool goal in the derby - he would have dearly loved to shut up the

Everton fans in such a way - though he did at least manage to stay on the pitch for the whole 90 minutes and played with a calm efficiency that suggested he knew his manager had a point.

The day might have panned out differently for Everton had Tim Cahill accepted a close-range chance after 14 minutes. The Australian is normally deadly close to goal but could not adjust his feet quickly enough when a corner came straight through to him. The miss seemed to bother him and he completed an off-colour afternoon by collected a red card for catching Xabi Alonso after the ball had gone. It was not the most reckless of two-footed tackles, indeed Moyes said it was not even the worst challenge of the game, but Cahill did not do himself any favors by refusing to acknowledge Riley's whistle and by the time his manager had urged him to turn round it is possible the referee took a more severe view of his offense. 'I won't know about that until I ask the referee about it, but I don't think the tackle warranted a red card,' Moyes said. 'It was clearly going to be a booking at least, though, and I was encouraging Tim to go and face the referee just so we could restart the game more quickly.'

By Merseyside derby standards of controversy this was pretty insipid stuff, particularly as it occurred when the result was beyond doubt. The whole game was slightly disappointing from the point of view of those who regard these occasions as the high point of the year, ie Evertonians, because Liverpool no longer rise to the occasion. They just turn up and win, hoping to getting the irritation out of the way as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

A cutting edge as surgically precise as Torres allows them to do just that, and Moyes must surely rethink the wisdom of aiming for goalless draws when up against such a lethal finisher. 'We wanted to be harder to beat than we have been,' Moyes said revealingly. 'But in the end Torres was clinical.' Indeed he was. He scored his first at the far post after Robbie Keane sent over a deep cross from the left, and an absurdly easy second minutes later when Phil Jagielka dispossessed Dirk Kuyt in the area and Everton stood around instead of clearing the loose ball.

Two goals, three minutes, game over. Everton were never going to come back, and all they managed before the end was a shot from Saha that missed and a chance for Yakubu that Marouane Fellaini, making a promising home debut in difficult circumstances for a 20-year-old with a £15m price tag, inadvertently deflected away from his team-mate.

By that stage the Liverpool fans in the Bullens Road stand were belting out 'You'll Never Walk Alone', while the home support attempted to drown them out with whistles. This is not a gulf that is being bridged. 'You could see the difference £100m can make,' Moyes said grimly. 'But whatever the cost I expect my teams to compete.'