- Virgil van Dijk snatched a 100th-minute for Liverpool against Everton on Sunday
- Arne Slot’s men thus won the first-ever derby at the Hill Dickinson Stadium
- The Reds have now scored six injury-time winners against their Merseyside rivals in the Premier League era
Virgil van Dijk’s 100th-minute winner for Liverpool at the Hill Dickinson Stadium on Sunday, is the latest in the list of unforgettable Merseyside Derby injury-time winners against Everton.
The Reds etched the latest chapter in one of the Premier League’s most dramatic and recurring storylines at the weekend, as they broke the Toffees’ hearts in stoppage time once again.
There is a particular cruelty to conceding in injury time that never quite fades, and Everton know it too well.
Ask any Evertonian, and they will tell you that a Liverpool winner does not just sting – it lingers, as it is replayed, reshared, and relentlessly referenced in the months and years that follow on the merciless battlefield that is known as the internet.
Van Dijk’s header on Sunday ensured that the Hill Dickinson Stadium’s very first Merseyside derby would be remembered for all the wrong reasons by the blue half (being very generous here) of the city.
But that was far from the first time Liverpool have twisted the knife when the clock was almost up.
Here are their greatest injury-time winners in the Premier League against their city rivals.
5. Ronny Rosenthal – 90th minute, Anfield, March 1993
Liverpool’s first-ever injury-time winner against Everton in the Premier League era came in 1993, when Ronny Rosenthal came off the bench in the 75th minute of a turgid, goalless showdown at Anfield.
When it seemed the game was destined to peter out into a stalemate, Ian Rush played a clever pass into his path inside the Everton area in the dying seconds.
Rosenthal made no mistake, firing past Neville Southall into the far corner in front of the Kop, with the opposition appealing for offside.
This moment set the template for everything that followed.
4. Sadio Mane – 94th minute, Goodison Park, December 2016
Jurgen Klopp had waited for his first Merseyside Derby win since arriving at Anfield, and it arrived in the most Liverpool way imaginable.
A goalless night at Goodison, the tension ratcheting up with every passing minute, and that is when Daniel Sturridge’s shot cannoned off the post and fell straight into the path of Sadio Mane, who only needed to roll it home.
The away end erupted. In the hospitality lounges, Gary McAllister, Kenny Dalglish and Rush celebrated so much that then Everton chairman Bill Kenwright threw them all out.
That story alone is reason enough to love this goal.
Liverpool love injury-time winners v Everton
3. Van Dijk – 100th minute, Hill Dickinson Stadium, April 2026
The freshest entry on the list takes its place among the pantheon for what surrounded it as much as the goal itself.
As the game headed towards the final whistle, Liverpool found themselves at Everton’s brand-new home with Freddie Woodman in goal, a goalkeeper who had not played in the Premier League since 2021.
Alexander Isak was barely at match fitness, and they had suffered four defeats in their last five matches.
With Slot’s side clearly for the taking, the Toffees were desperate to christen the Hill Dickinson Stadium with a derby victory.
Van Dijk, though, had other ideas, as he rose the highest to meet a Dominik Szoboszlai corner in the 100th-minute and head the ball into the back of the net to earn a 2-1 win and the Reds’ sixth injury-time winner against their arch-rivals in the Premier League.
That is more than any other club have managed against a single opponent in the competition’s history.
2. McAllister – 94th minute, Goodison Park, April 2001
This is perhaps the benchmark goal every subsequent Merseyside Derby injury-time winner has been measured against.
Ten-man Liverpool at 2-2, deep into added time, awarded a free-kick a barely-believable 44 yards from goal. McAllister, 36, at the time, shaped to float a cross to the far post – then spotted Paul Gerrard shift across to his left and whipped the ball precisely inside the near post.
It was a moment of audacity diguised as composure.
That goal kept the Anfield outfit’s season alive, ultimately helping them qualify for the UEFA Champions League for the first time in the Premier League era.
McAllister later admitted he may have nudged the ball slightly closer to goal when the referee was not watching, with Everton fans he meet keen to point that out.
He has, by his own admission, never stopped milking it.
1. Divock Origi – 96th minute, Anfield, December 2018
This one defies rational explanation. As chaotic, absurd and joyously surreal as any goal in the history of English football, in my opinion.
With the game goalless and running on fumes deep into stoppage time, Van Dijk left fly with a wildly miscued volley that drew an audible groan from the Anfield crowd.
The image of Van Dijk turned away in disgust is still etched in the minds of many.
Then the ball looped improbably upwards, Jordan Pickford, fumbled it into his own crossbar – and then somehow into his crossbar again – and Divock Origi, introduced as a substitute just minutes earlier, was on hand to it home beneath the Kop.
Klopp springted on to the Anfield pitch to celebrate with Allison. The internet broke. Pickford had nightmares – still probably does.
And the image of a delirious Anfield, celebrating a goal that had no right to exist, became one of the defining images of one of English football’s most dramatic fixture.
There surely have been more important Liverpool derby winners, more technically brilliant ones, and more romantic ones, but there has never been, and may never again be, one quite as magnificently unhinged as this.
