“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on the human face – forever.”
George Orwell, ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’

While watching his side slip to a heavy 3-0 defeat against their arch-rivals Liverpool, Everton manager David Moyes looked like a tortured man. With all the celebrations and goodwill around his tenth anniversary in charge spoilt by Steven Gerrard’s hat-trick, it brought to mind O’Brien’s brutal put-down of Winston Smith’s anti-authoritarian dreams in Room 101, an upstart rebellion quashed by remorseless force from above.

However, the match brought home a few painful points of comparison for the victors too – too many times for their liking in recent years Liverpool have been grouped with their struggling neighbours in the upper-middle reaches of the Premier League rather than their accustomed position among the stars of Europe, and such a fall from grace can hardly be hidden by a win over their hard-up rivals.

Liverpool may have local bragging rights after the victory at Anfield, which they can add to their League Cup triumph and higher league position, but even the most ardent Red must envy Everton for having such a masterful manager. Legendary boss Kenny Dalglish may have returned to aid the cause, but the strains and stresses of recent years have yet to go away, and as progress has stalled the surprise appointment has begun to look the eccentric gamble it appeared to be at the time.

Before coming into the derby, Liverpool lost their last three Premier League matches for the first time in nine years, and the side’s inability to win at home has seen them loiter on the fringes of the race for the final Champions League place, fighting threats from below more often than challenging at the top. That such a moderate aim is not even being reached by the former powerhouse of English football is a sign of how far the club have fallen, how the horrors of the Tom Hicks and George Gillett era knocked a side readying a title challenge off the pace just as Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City were catching up. Dalglish’s return to the dugout after ten years away shows how desperate the situation became, and despite confidently defeating Everton it has yet to be fully salvaged.

It is easy to forget that 18 months ago Liverpool were in a state of civil war, an unfortunate manager in Roy Hodgson caught between unpopular owners, implacable banks and incandescent fans. The brief flirtation with relegation has largely been forgotten, but such a catastrophic scenario was never likely, and with Dalglish (and director of football Damien Comolli) spending over £100M on new players since the former’s Second Coming at Anfield, the excuses for continuing under-achievement are wearing thin, especially when compared to Everton’s relative successes on a shoestring budget.

Had Moyes been given a large transfer kitty by an incoming investor such as Liverpool’s John Henry and New England Sports Ventures, he certainly would never have spent £35M on Andy Carroll (no matter how much his burly, goal-shy shape fits into the mould of a modern Everton striker). Similarly, there is no way the former Preston boss would have sanctioned the signings of Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing when players of higher calibre like Yohan Cabaye, Scott Parker and Bryan Ruiz were available at a fraction of the cost. The cultured industry of Charlie Adam and left back Jose Enrique are a partial vindication of Dalglish’s transfer policy, but especially signing the former for ten times the fee Blackpool paid for the Scot hardly screams judiciousness.

Moyes, in comparison, signed Mikel Arteta, Louis Saha and Tim Cahill for peanuts, and even his more expensive transfers like Marouane Fellaini and Yakubu have tended to pay off. Some pricey signings, such as Diniyar Bilyaletdinov and Andy van der Meyde, did indeed prove costly mistakes, but Moyes’ hit-rate is high even at the pricier end of the spectrum, making the enforced prudence at Everton all the more jarring when contrasted to the profligacy at Anfield.

Indeed, many of Everton’s recent achievements could be a lesson to Liverpool. Anfield’s academy may have seen an influx of expensive youngsters from around the world, but only Martin Kelly and Jay Spearing have become first team regulars since Gerrard and Jamie Carragher broke through in the 1990s, in which time Everton’s conveyor belt of talent has introduced Wayne Rooney, Jack Rodwell, Tony Hibbert, Ross Barkley and others.

The Luis Suarez-Patrice Evra incident also showed that distance between boardroom and the fabled Anfield boot room still causes problems, a lack of leadership allowing paranoia to poison the situation and see the club’s standing slide further. Everton chairman Bill Kenwright may have recently suffered from the epidemic of fan unrest in English football, but his cautious stewardship is borne from a passion that cannot be denied, with a decency rarely doubted.

Of course, Everton’s life is not perfect. Their chief need is to raise the resources required to sustain a challenge to the top clubs and keep their manager’s ambitions satisfied – should Moyes be lured away to Tottenham or another richer club, Goodison Park could once again see the regular relegation battles that preceded his reign. As well as looking for a new owner, the key objective to achieve this is the attempt to build a new stadium, a challenge they also share with their city rivals. Until either side rectifies this they will fall further behind their rivals in London and, most painfully, Manchester.

As the Merseyside derby showed, out of the two clubs it is Liverpool, with their ambitious new owners, recent glories and starrier players, who remain the standard-bearers for the region’s football. However, without a new stadium, a more efficient transfer policy and – potentially – a new manager, being top dog in Merseyside may no longer be synonymous with success. Indeed, as Manchester looks down from the top of the table, backed by insurmountable wealth and an insatiable winning habit, it could seem tantamount to torture.