Inside Everton training ground as jokes heard at Finch Farm after Merseyside derby win over Liverpool

“You beat Liverpool and everyone wants to be here”, the steward joked as the Finch Farm car park neared capacity on Thursday afternoon.

Spring is in the air at Everton’s training ground which, sitting on the fringe of the Cheshire countryside, often feels like it is in a different climate to Liverpool city centre. There was, therefore, quite fittingly a spring in everyone’s step.

The complex has never been a bad place to go but the mood was understandably brighter the day after the night before. A Merseyside derby win does that.

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The staff are typically welcoming in Halewood but there was clearly a feel-good spirit that was a far cry from the sense of gloom and concern that has descended on Finch Farm over recent seasons. So many of the staff are Blues so when the club is struggling, few can hide their own feelings. So often the barriers have been lifted at the front gates to let in players, staff and, sometimes, reporters, with the club in crisis. Amid points deductions and relegation fights Finch Farm has often been the frontline of the battle, the public face of the club, and it has almost always been Sean Dyche - it is sometimes James Tarkowski - who has been tasked with the unenviable role of fronting up to the world and trying to project a sense of calm.

It was a different world on Thursday afternoon, however. That started with the players, said to have been notably “buzzing” when they arrived for their recovery day. Celebrations had extended into the tunnel and players areas at Goodison, where the jubilation of those in Royal Blue was a marked contrast to the dismay of Liverpool stars as they headed to the away dressing room knowing they had been out-fought. Jurgen Klopp cut a similar figure in the post-match press conference as he apologised for the performance and conceded the title, bar a double crisis for Arsenal and Manchester City.

For the Blues there were hugs, backslaps and just unadulterated joy. The players carried that feeling into Thursday and their arrival at Finch Farm. It was a feeling that extended to, and was intensified by, the emotions of the grounds staff, youth players and those milling around reception eager to share a knowing glance, a smile, or a personal derby highlight.

The feel-good factor reached Dyche too. He may want to project an image of calm but, particularly with the chastening capitulation at Chelsea and the inquest that inspired still in recent memory, he will have been justified at any indulgence in self-satisfaction as he fielded questions that were supposed to be about the upcoming game with Brentford but were really still about the derby win. Dyche actually turned up early - or so he thought, joking as he arrived in the press room at 2.11pm. It was only then that he was told the press conference had been brought forward and that he was 11 minutes late, not four minutes early.

But the intent was apparently there. And, unlike the occasions when he has had to stop a press conference and clarify he had made a joke after it failed to land, this time everyone was able to share in the moment.