I liked the struggle Everton took to Liverpool. Putting them on their a***s… That’s how a soccer match must be, writes GRAEME SOUNESS

As human beings, we like aggression. We like to see confrontation. It’s a gladiatorial instinct that goes right back to Rome’s Colosseum in the first century AD and it’s why boxing, MMA and other contact sports are so popular.

It’s in us. The ‘good and bad’ is in us. That’s the reason why I loved the Goodison derby on Wednesday night, and why millions more like me will have felt the same.

The game was a throwback – refereed by an official who played his part in allowing a lot more to go on.

It was the kind of game that has been increasingly lost, because of all the Johnny-come-latelys who have changed our sport into the reduced spectacle it is today – much of it a very hard watch, with the passive football on display, the referee blowing his whistle for every nudge and the tedious simulation that goes on.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a huge amount to like about the modern game. The quality of the modern stadiums. The showbiz razzmatazz. Those stadiums are full and there’s never been more football coverage.

But whether the Johnnies like it or not, people love the kind of spectacle we saw on Wednesday. For those 100 or so minutes, the watered-down aspects of the modern game, which borders on a non-contact sport at times, went out the window.

What we saw was a team, in Everton, who had less ability than the opposition but who said: ‘We’re not going to play a game on your terms.’

Their plan wasn’t to go out and say: ‘Let’s have a jolly nice passing game of football.’ No. This was: ‘We’ll get in the faces of Liverpool players. We won’t let their flair players damage us. We’ll put a few of them on their arses and see how they respond to that. Let’s see who really fancies it.’

That’s how it always used to be. At Liverpool, Ronnie Moran reminded us more times than I care to remember that the opposition manager across the corridor wasn’t telling his players: ‘Right, we’re at Anfield today. Let’s go out and take Liverpool on in a game of football.’

It would be a test of whether we were up for the fight on that particular day. We had to be two teams. The first one had to win the fight. The second one had to win the game of football. We were confronted with that nearly every week of the season.

No one has to be those ‘two teams’ any more. The modern game is weighted against the less technically talented teams.

The top sides just have to be a good football team from the first minute. People rolling it out, playing on their 18-yard line, trying to pass it out from the back from the first minute to the 90th minute.

They’re protected against the physicality and the fight because the slightest little challenge is pulled up and carded. The guy who’s been carded then can’t be as aggressive as he would want to be for the rest of the game.

Liverpool faced a very different proposition at Goodison. One they have rarely faced this season. You have to say that they did well and would think that they should have won that game.

But Everton were fantastic at what they were doing, which was being in their faces. Yes, it was feisty. But, I repeat, we human beings like ‘feisty.’

There was the same passion pouring down from the stands. All the supporters at the end of the day, even the Liverpool ones whose side conceded a 98th-minute equaliser, will have respected that level of competitiveness.

That’s how the people are on Merseyside. If a team, in red or blue, have a right good go, they’ll accept you, even if you don’t win every week.

I suspect the Liverpool fans will have left that ground thinking, ‘You know what, we should have won, but we had a go. No one went missing.’

We saw Arne Slot getting caught up in it all too – red carded for his comments to the referee. When you’re winning as a football manager, you’re an open book and you’re everyone’s friend.

When you’re not winning, you’ve got a red face and you’re angry with everyone. That red face is in Slot, too. So far, he’s not had to show any side other than the smiling, laid back Arne.

We saw a different one on Wednesday night, which is good to see. The Red supporters will be happy to see that.

I don’t think Liverpool can have any complaints about James Tarkowski’s equaliser. For me, I would be looking at Ibrahima Konate.

He’s a giant of a man and he wasn’t commanding enough. He’s defending his goal and should have dealt with that particular incident.

That’s why he’s there – to deal with those kinds of situations. The message has to be, ‘You’ve got a physical presence, so go and clear your lines.’

What wouldn’t I give for just one day back in the kind of midfield cauldron we witnessed in that game. It was what you lived for.

Playing against the Peter Reids or the Bryan Robsons, knowing you can rattle their cage and they’ll rattle your cage and no way are they not going to come back for more. In those games you were playing against the very best – not just the very best in terms of abilities but in the mental toughness.

That was the test. I’d lie awake on a Friday night, looking forward to it.

You don’t want to see the kind of scenes we saw at the end on Wednesday. My experience of derbies was that there was 90 minutes of refusing to give an inch or to take a single step backwards, and at the end of it we would shake hands.

I remember in 1981 at Goodison, there was a flare-up at the Gwladys Street end – a bit of a stramash as we Scots call it. Jimmy Case clashed with their goalkeeper, Martin Hodge, in their box and then people joined in. But at the end, we still all shook hands.

Abdoulaye Doucoure celebrating in front of Liverpool fans is just asking for trouble. Though perhaps that’s a bit rich coming from me! I’m the fella who planted a Galatasaray flag in the Fenerbahce centre circle!

Seriously, Everton have got a draw – a draw with the last kick of the ball! For me, you should be celebrating with your mates.

It was a great night for David Moyes. He’s got a different tune out of these Everton players now. He’s finding an extra yard of aggression in them.

Of course, they’re not playing Liverpool every week, so the challenge is to get that level of intensity and controlled anger and be like that again and again. On the night, you have to say they played near enough the perfect game.

What a night! To a man, no one on either side hid on what was an emotion-charged, very important game for both teams. We certainly won’t forget that one in a hurry.

Bellingham is the finished article – he could be frighteningly good 

Having watched Real Madrid play Manchester City in the week, I must my revise my judgement of them. I said last week that I could only see an English club winning the Champions League. I have to eat my words on that one.

When I watched Real play earlier in the season, I felt they were not good enough to win that big trophy. On Tuesday, I thought they looked fabulous and I must give Jude Bellingham a special mention.

I’ve said on these pages that he should keep his counsel a little bit more but oh, what a player he looked in that match. When he plays like that, he really is the finished article – already, at the age of 21. How good he could be really is frightening.

City face an enormous task in the second leg but we know what that group is capable of and if it all clicks on one night, they could still go to the Bernabeu and win.

Plymouth slip-up hammers home how crucial Salah is 

Arne Slot picked a group of players last weekend who ought to have been good enough to go to Plymouth, a team huffing and puffing in the Championship.

It was the FA Cup, a tournament littered with teams coming unstuck when we didn’t think they would be.

Arne started the game with Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz and brought Darwin Nunez on, but significantly Mo Salah was absent.

I think Liverpool must realise how important it is to keep him.

Havertz injury a blessing in disguise for Arteta 

I’m not so sure how much Kai Havertz, who is out for the rest of the season, will be missed.

I watched him in the Carabao Cup semi-final against Newcastle the other week. He just kept getting pushed over and losing possession.

Mikel Arteta has Bukayo Saka coming back and he just has to come up with different ways of scoring goals and perhaps a slightly different way of playing, while maintaining the same basic principles.

It might be a blessing in disguise, if someone steps up and proves to be an unexpected goalscorer.