Rodgers: We learned from Villa mistakes
Brendan Rodgers echoed the sentiments of his captain Steven Gerrard by insisting Liverpool learned from shortcomings against Aston Villa to thrash Everton 4-0 in the Merseyside derby on Tuesday.
One alteration was made to the side which dropped two points on home turf in the last Barclays Premier League outing, with Jon Flanagan coming in to replace the injured Glen Johnson.
And yet, the two first half performances were polar opposites. Against Villa, it was the visitors who dictated the play while on Tuesday, Everton found themselves swamped by Rodgers' side.
Within 36 minutes of the game against Paul Lambert's men, Liverpool had leaked two goals. In the same length of time in the derby, they had raced to an impressive three-goal cushion.
Rodgers believes the players out on the field were not only much more ruthless in front of goal against the Blues, but that they dominated in areas where Villa were given free reign.
"I thought what was important was that we could control the space better," the manager told Liverpoolfc.com.
"I felt that once we got the goal up front we were able to close the space and we've got real quick players on the counter attack and that allowed us to break forward and look a real threat.
"You learn from every game, both as a player and a coach. And I think against Everton you could see in the response from the players that they are always learning. To get a 4-0 victory against a team that has only conceded 11 goals away from home shows the real quality in our performance."
The performance will live long in the memory for all Kopites who witnessed it; as will the celebration of Reds skipper Steven Gerrard, who bulleted home the opener before sprinting towards the creator, Luis Suarez.
Daniel Sturridge was the coolest man in Anfield when he latched onto passes from Philippe Coutinho and then Kolo Toure to produce two equally sublime finishes and extend Liverpool's lead to 3-0.
Phil Jagielka under-hit a short ball near the centre-circle and the Everton man was duly punished by the ever-alert Suarez, who sped towards the Kop before side-footing past Tim Howard.
"The game also showed that we're capitalising on mistakes," said Rodgers. "The first goal was a brilliant ball in by Luis and Stevie has risen strongly and it's a brilliant header to put us 1-0 up.
"The second one was a perfect counter attack. We set up an immediate block, we intercepted and then it was one pass to Coutinho, who played a great through ball and it was a wonderful finish by Daniel.
"The third goal, Daniel has made a great run and Kolo has found him with a high ball over the top and it's a sublime finish. It reminded me of the one away at Fulham last year, but this one here was probably more difficult.
"So it was 3-0 at half-time and we had closed the game out in the last five or six minutes of the period; we didn't want to give Everton any encouragement. And that set us up well for the second half."