David Moyes, the Everton manager, would never be drawn into boasting about his team before a Merseyside derby, but the Scot feels that the league table is a demonstration of his club’s progress rather than Liverpool’s failings. Having finished above their neighbours to qualify for the Champions League in 2005, only for Liverpool to gain entry by winning the competition, Moyes takes his team to Anfield tomorrow with seven matches left and the opportunity to erase the two-point deficit to Rafael Benítez’s team.

While Everton’s attempts to break into the top four appear to have been more about catching Liverpool than Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal, Moyes, who has been in charge at Goodison Park since 2002, believes that his team’s strong position is a result of consistent improvement.

“We are in that mix again and have been in and around it a few times now,” Moyes said. “We want to keep fighting to get to fourth place. The squad is quite light at the minute. We are a different football club [from his first derby match in charge] and we are looked at in a different light.

“There are signs that Everton are moving in the right direction and we need to keep getting as close to the top teams as we possibly can. We have been edging closer and closer year in, year out. I remember bits of the run during 2005. The players had to grind out a few results. We finished that season with 61 points and qualified. As we well know, that points tally isn’t going to happen. We were always looking at Liverpool as they were pushing us hard.

“It would be a tremendous boost. Whoever gets it, whether it would be Liverpool or Everton, will benefit, but we have got closer to them every year. We have been in fourth for a while this season and we have been there before as well, so we shouldn’t be too surprised about our position. The first priority is, at the minute, to make sure we finish no worse than fifth. That gets us back into Europe.”

Derby matches in the mid 1990s were characterised by Joe Royle’s “Dogs of War”, but Moyes believes that an attractive game is not beyond the realms of possibility. “I think it is a compliment to say that the quality of our football has increased,” he said. “I still believe we always want to give teams good games. I want us to play good football. But you have to be competitive and we had to bridge the gap from what we had to what Liverpool had. Now the gap is getting much closer and it’s allowing us to play better football.”

Motivation is never a problem in these matches, but Moyes insists that the 2-1 defeat by Liverpool in October, when Dirk Kuyt scored two penalties, will not be on his players’ minds before the short trip to Anfield. Tony Hibbert and Phil Neville were sent off in the match at Goodison Park, with Kuyt escaping with a booking for a wild lunge, and a challenge by Jamie Carragher on Joleon Lescott should have resulted in Everton being awarded a chance to equalise from the penalty spot in the closing stages.

However, Moyes, who will be without Tim Cahill, the midfield player, for the rest of the season with a broken foot, said: “In football, you can’t think like that. It’s gone. You move on. I think what happened gave us a lot of strength because we were united in thinking that we were wrongly done to that day.”

Rivalry formed from a landlord’s dispute

-A dispute with their landlord at Anfield prompted Everton to leave for Goodison Park in 1892. To ensure that football continued at Anfield, the landlord formed Liverpool FC.

-Liverpool’s rivalry with Everton is not considered to be as ferocious as between other neighbouring clubs around the country, yet passions have run high in recent years. In six of the past 22 derby matches there have been at least two red cards. In three of the past ten meetings, two Everton players have been sent off, with Phil Neville dismissed on the past two occasions.

-Everton felt aggrieved after the 2-1 home defeat by Liverpool in October because they were not awarded a penalty when Jamie Carragher appeared to haul Joleon Lescott to the ground in the area. Everton have not had a penalty in any of their other 30 league games this season, either.

-Everton and Liverpool have been together in the top flight since 1962. In that period, excluding one-off matches such as the Charity or Community Shield and European Super Cup, Liverpool have won 35 leading trophies and Everton only eight.

-Everton would move ahead of Liverpool into fourth place with a victory tomorrow, but they have finished above their rivals only four times since 1965: in 1970, 1985, 1987 and 2005.

-Fernando Torres has scored 20 league goals in his first season with Liverpool. No Everton player has managed 20 league goals in a season since Gary Lineker scored 30 in 1985-86.

-The clubs played in the last FA Cup second replay, which Everton won 1-0 at Goodison Park in February 1991. The next season penalty shoot-outs were introduced after a first replay.

-Three of the past five derbies at Anfield have finished goalless. Words by Bill Edgar