Ahead of the historic first Merseyside Derby at Hill Dickinson Stadium, we look back at a classic Everton home match against Liverpool
05:00, 19 Apr 2026
Tim Cahill celebrates as the Everton team pile on top of goal scorer Lee Carsley during the Goodison derby in December 11, 2004(Image: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images)
The enduring image of Everton’s victory in the 200th Merseyside Derby is the one of their players piled on top of each other celebrating Lee Carsley’s match-winner, but the hero of the hour was nowhere to be seen. Manager David Moyes was so delighted by the photograph – which symbolised his first ever success against the Blues’ neighbours – that he ordered a framed copy for every member of his squad.
However, recalling the match several years later, Carsley told The Independent: “I find it ironic, because I’m still asked to sign that picture of my goal celebrations and I’m the only Everton player not on it.
“That was a great day, people still talk to me about it, but after the goal I fell to the floor, everyone jumped on me and then Tim Cahill piled on top. He is the only one looking into the camera and he’s probably signed as many copies of that photograph as I have.”
In a way though, the picture sums up hard grafter Carsley’s understated but integral contribution to the Everton cause even if he wasn’t necessarily the player who immediately caught your eye with his winner against Liverpool one of just 13 goals in 198 appearances for the club (averaging less than two per season).
The fruitful 2004/05 season, in which Everton shocked the football world, going from 17th on 39 points the previous campaign to finishing fourth with their highest Premier League placing to date, was by far Carsley’s most prolific on Merseyside as he found the net on five occasions.
Indeed, his form, providing a shield in front of Moyes’ defence, was so impressive, many observers speculated that Real Madrid might well have signed the wrong player when they snapped up fellow bald central midfielder Thomas Gravesen in January 2005 as a replacement for Claude Makelele in the anchor man role. Despite the Dane’s ‘Mad Dog’ nickname and fist-shaking, eye-popping nature, he was more artist than artisan in the engine room.
Although he subsequently proved himself to be both an erudite columnist with the ECHO and astute coach (steering England to glory at the UEFA European Under-21 Championship in both 2023 and 2025 with a caretaker stint in the Three Lions’ top job in between), Carsley – whose other famous goal celebration shot is one of him sporting a bandaged head against Fulham – was a genuine hard case on the pitch.
It wasn’t entirely in keeping with the principles of Goodison Park’s fabled ‘School of Science’ but the Birmingham-born Republic of Ireland international once quipped that when he heard the club’s famous Z-Cars anthem: “I want to kill, I want to take someone out!”
Lee Carsley is congratulated by Marcus Bent after scoring the winning goal during the match between Everton and Liverpool at Goodison Park on December 11, 2004(Image: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)
Such an uncompromising and committed approach helped Moyes’ unlikely band of Blues brothers to climb the table in 2004/05, with the likes of Cahill and Marcus Bent coming in to replace Wayne Rooney and Tomasz Radzinski. The Goodison success over their neighbours – who would finish the campaign winning the Champions League – saw Everton move back up into second spot, and they were well worth their win.
David Prentice of the ECHO wrote: “Lee Carsley placed an effective restraining order on Steven Gerrard, but elsewhere Everton tried to be as expressive as a team can be under the constricting restraints of a derby match. Kevin Kilbane terrorised the hapless Josemi, Leon Osman’s constant probings ensured Riise couldn’t advance down the opposite flank and Thomas Gravesen took advantage of what rare chinks of space emerged in the midfield area to chisel out openings in the Reds’ rear-guard.
“But Everton’s real unsung heroes were at the back. Alessandro Pistone has always been a Rolls-Royce of a performer, but with a mechanical record of a second-hand Skoda, but in his 19th consecutive performance for the Blues he was polished and precise in everything he did. To his right, the redoubtable Stubbs and Weir were heroic, the skipper’s injury-time challenge on Mellor was the stuff of derby day legend.”
The goal came in the 68th minute and Prentice wrote: “Carsley was a popular goalscorer. After he picked up a loose clearance and curled in a 20-yard drive with the inside of his right-foot, he was promptly submerged beneath a battery of ecstatic team-mates.
“There is a newspaper clipping pinned to the noticeboard at Bellefield which says: ‘Blues chief warns leave cars at home,’ to which a team-mate has jokingly added – ‘and play 4-4-2!’ It is very much a joke, because Carsley’s influence on the Everton side stretches far beyond the wickedly clipped right-footed strikes he has weighed in with this season.”
Such was his importance, Carsley himself later chirped that the Blues had to shell out a then club record £15million on Marouane Fellaini to eventually replace him.