A full strength Everton playing at their best is currently a much better team than the Liverpool equivalent.
Sometimes though, you need to avoid poor refereeing, and cheating opportunists, and unfortunately both are rife every time we play Liverpool. It wouldn't surprise me if Pienaars card was a brown envelope affair in advance, as we've had some terrible refereeing decisions made against us this season, and you can't help but be paranoid sometimes that there is a protective force to prevent any new teams challenging the top 4.