Liverpool and Taylor taking positives despite Merseyside derby thrashing

New Liverpool head coach Gareth Taylor felt his side were "pretty good" despite their heavy defeat to Everton in their Women's Super League curtain-raiser at Anfield.

After the Reds opened the scoring in the 12th minute through Cornelia Kapocs, they were stunned by Ornella Vignola's hat-trick on her competitive debut for her new team. 

Everton captain Katja Snoeijs put the visitors into the lead in first-half stoppage time, with Brian Sorensen's side cruising to victory to seal a perfect start to their campaign. 

Liverpool are now winless in their last eight Merseyside derbies, drawing six and losing two, with three of those defeats coming in consecutive games against their rivals. 

The game saw Taylor make his first appearance in the Liverpool dugout, and despite his side's emphatic defeat, he remained positive. 

"Because games can just get away from you really, really quickly. My feelings are strange really because I felt in the first half - particularly in the first 40 minutes - we were pretty good. Probably better than pretty good. I think the control we had in the game was very good," Taylor said. 

"Then it’s just the four minutes either side of half-time, you can see how quickly the game can get away from you. Disappointing, obviously, to concede the [first] goal when we were so dominant, but I felt that the players still then got a grip of the game.

"We could've been easily better than 1-0, even at 1-1 it could've probably been the scoreline that you've seen at the end quite easily. We hit the bar once, post twice, maybe Marie [Hobinger] has had a really good chance. [We had] lots of opportunities. There are a lot of things to improve, and we need to get better, and we need to get fitter."

Everton, meanwhile, came from behind after conceding the opening goal to win a WSL game for the first time in 27 games, with the last time being against Reading in April 2023.

The Toffees are also now unbeaten in their last three games in the WSL. Their last longer unbeaten streak was from between April 2024 and May 2024, a run of four matches.

But the day belonged to Vignola, who joined from Granada in July and marked her debut in the top flight in style. 

Indeed, the Uruguayan also finished the encounter with team-high totals for shots on target (three), touches in the opposition box (four) and aerial duels won (two). 

"She's been looking so good. That is the reason she started today. She has been looking so good in pre-season, she's aggressive, and she's smart in her runs, and she just wants to score goals. I'm so pleased for her," Sorenson said of Vignola. 

"Within 60 minutes, we used to have to have a lead because we didn't used to have enough depth with the quality you need in this league to turn things around."

Liverpool travel to Leicester City next Sunday, while Everton make their home bow at Goodison Park when they take on Tottenham.