One of Everton's heroes of 1999 is thrilled to have finally shed the tag of being part of the last Everton team to win at Anfield.
And Richard Gough, who formed an impregnable defensive partnership with David Weir against Liverpool in September 1999, says he had a good feeling about Everton's latest visit to their fiercest rivals after just 10 seconds!
From the kick-off Tom Davies rolled the ball back to Michael Keane, who stopped the ball for Ben Godfrey to launch forwards. Liverpool's backpedalling defence misjudged the flight of the ball in the swirling wind and Oban Kazak conceded the first corner of the game almost immediately.
Gough, who was 37 when he signed for Everton in 1999 but made 42 impeccable appearances for the Blues, said: "That was from an old-school kick-off. Nowadays, teams kick-off and pass it back and you can put yourself under pressure.
"I was glad that Ancelotti said 'get the ball into their box and let’s see what happens'. Liverpool made a mistake and straight away we were on the front foot."
Everton's 1999 triumph at Anfield followed a similar pattern to Saturday night, with Everton's centre-forward scoring early at the Kop End and the Blues defending heroically to keep a well-earned clean sheet.
But Gough is happy that Everton have now finally laid their Anfield jinx which had endured from that night.
"Everyone brought it up every year when Everton went there so it’s a record that I am quite happy to get rid of," he said.
"It was a well-deserved win, they showed a lot of bravery and I hope the foreign boys who have just joined the club realise how hard it is to go and win at Anfield.
"When I read that Liverpool hadn’t lost four at home on the spin since 1923, that’s incredible and shows how difficult it is to go there and win.
"It wasn’t a fluke because the boys played well.”
Everton were reduced to 10-men in 1999 when striker Francis Jeffers was sent off for fighting with Reds goalkeeper Sander Westerveld - and Steven Gerrard also saw red as Liverpool were reduced to nine-men!
Gough believes that Trent Alexander-Arnold was also relived not to see red on Saturday night when he was penalised for bringing down Dominic Calvert-Lewin for the penalty which made it 2-0.
"It was a penalty, all day," added Gough. "Calvert-Lewin would have tapped it in if he hadn’t been pulled down. You could see Alexander-Arnold’s reaction, he knew what he’d done and I think he was expecting a red card.
"The referee was in a good position and it was a great penalty by Sigurdsson."
Gough remembers the red card incidents from 1999 clearly.
"I look like I was trying to get Steven Gerrard sent-off but that wasn’t the case," he explained. "Gerrard had taken Kevin Campbell above the knee. He was a young man, he was excited and it was a bad challenge. I just said to the referee ‘that’s a straight red, surely’ and he knew it was, I was just making sure!
"Gerrard later told me that he was out in town that night and met Kevin Campbell in a bar in the city centre. Kevin called him over, took him to the toilet and showed him the damage on his thigh!"
