Having not scored a Premier League goal between the turn of the year and Thursday evening, Liverpool left north London with three points in their pockets after beating Tottenham Hotspur in a relatively thrilling match and broke a very poor winless run which stretched over five outings and almost a month and a half. Roberto Firmino opened the scoring at the very end of the first half and Trent Alexander-Arnold doubled it soon after the break. The visitors’ lead was quickly cut in half by Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s 20-yard thunderbolt, but Sadio Mane set the final score with just under half an hour to go.
Spurs
Son Hueng-min put the ball in the net for his team with less than three minutes gone from the opening whistle, only to see it dismissed by VAR for an offside position in the immediate buildup. Had that goal counted, the game would probably have taken a direction very different from what we saw happen. Given Mourinho’s well-documented reputation for defensive football, they would probably have fallen back and guarded Hugo Lloris’s goal in a Burnley-esque manner.
As it happened, the goal was ruled out. Spurs still played cautiously in the first half and only looked to hit back through long passes and pace. However, Harry Kane was well-marked throughout and he simply wasn’t able to produce the impact he usually does. He didn’t have any chances to score, and his ability to drop back and create, used so effectively this season, simply wasn’t seen with his opponents staying with him and putting the pressure on wherever he went. To make things worse, he picked up a knock on his ankle and after receiving treatment twice, he was left in the dressing room with Erik Lamela coming on. The Argentinian was completely invisible in the second half, and even though he was far from his best, Kane was still sorely missed.
Son had another good chance in the first half, using his pace and smart timing to get clear of the defenders and shoot, but his shot wasn’t as accurate as in the third minute and Alisson Becker in the Liverpool goal was able to make a fine save. And that was about it from the Korean. He usually plays off Kane so well, but with the England captain gone in the second half, Lamela’s lack of proper involvement did nothing to help him come alive.
Hojbjerg and Tanguy Ndombele did their usual work in the middle of the park, but they found it difficult to match the quality and the experience they were up against. At the back, Eric Dier did rather well on numerous occasions, but young Joe Rodon won’t be looking too kindly at his own reaction which enabled Mane to slam in Liverpool’s final goal on the night.
Having gone down at the very end of the first half to Firmino’s tap-in and with no Kane, Mourinho decided to change the shape of his team in the second half. They started the match in a 3-4-3 with Matt Doherty and Serge Aurier as the wing-backs and Ben Davies joining Dier and Rodon in the back line, but Aurier stayed with Kane in the dressing room after the break and made way for midfielder Harry Winks. Davies went back to playing on the left defensive flank, Doherty took the right.
Winks was supposed to help Hojbjerg and Ndombele keep control of the game and push their team forward, but he wasn’t much more involved than Lamela, who offered no support to Son and Steven Bergwijn upfront whatsoever. Nonetheless, the two starting midfielders seemed to have found new energy levels and Spurs actually had more possession than the visitors in the second half. Hojbjerg’s fantastic strike in the 49th minute was executed to perfection, leaving Alisson with no chance of saving it. Ndombele also played a part in it, by holding off James Milner to prevent the experienced Liverpool midfielder from blocking the shot.
But such an approach left the hosts exposed at the back, and they eventually succumbed to what looked like despair after conceding the third goal.
Liverpool
This was much better from the champions and Jurgen Klopp will have been pleased with what he saw from his team overall. There still seem to be a few defensive issues to iron out, but that’s only to be expected given the incredible injury woes their back line has been hit with throughout the season. Let’s remember – no Virgil van Dijk or Joe Gomez, while midfielder Fabinho, who has been doing admirably as a makeshift centre-back and was expected to start alongside Joel Matip, picked up a slight muscle issue just ahead of this game and was consequently unavailable. Captain Jordan Henderson was pulled back to fill the void.
And speaking of defensive injury problems, the situation became even more alarming at halftime. The recently recovered Matip was left out of the team for the second half with an ankle issue, and it seems he could be out for a long time again.
Ankle ligaments injury for Matip. Liverpool are worried about severity. https://t.co/BVf2aNRj0V
— paul joyce (@_pauljoyce) January 28, 2021
Nathaniel Phillips stepped into the breach this time, and unlike Rhys Williams against Manchester United in the FA Cup a few days before, the 23-year-old did very well and dealt with practically everything that came his way in an old-fashion no-nonsense way. But with no fit senior centre-backs remaining, it’ll be interesting to see if Liverpool change their transfer stance and dip into the market before the window closes in a few days.
Leaving that aside now, there were a few things to note about the way Liverpool played in this game. Alexander-Arnold was going through a patch of very poor form, like the rest of the team really, but this time he looked like the young right-back who set the world of football alight in the last two seasons, a Champions League and Premier League-winning one. Most importantly, his passing worked again, and that’s something Klopp will have been most pleased about.
Thiago Alcantara showed his class in the middle of the park, complemented well by Milner’s vast experience and the relentlessness of Georginio Wijnaldum.
Meanwhile, the front three were excellent, and that’s another thing that will have gotten a worry off Klopp’s back. Mohamed Salah was a constant handful on the right, and he scored a great goal, none the less so for being disallowed for Firmino handling the ball in the buildup. Firmino and Mane did a lot as well, and they both got on the scoresheet. Mane occasionally looked a bit rusty on the ball, but he ended up with an assist for Firmino’s opener, his shot being parried by Lloris into Alexander-Arnold’s path for the second, and a deserved goal for himself later on.
VAR gets it right
It doesn’t happen very often in the controversy-ridden Premier League, but the officiating in this game was very good. Martin Atkinson, one of the most fiercely and frequently criticized referees in England, did his job very well, keeping complete control over the match and his calls being mostly spot on.
As has been mentioned, there were two disallowed goals in this match, one at each end of the pitch, and both of those calls looked to have been correct as well. Son had indeed been offside in the buildup to his impeccable third-minute finish, while Firmino did handle the ball, moving his arm towards it, just before Thiago and Mane cooked up the chance which Salah slammed into the top corner in the 56th minute. Having checked the situation himself on the VAR screen, Atkinson awarded a free-kick to Spurs.
Is there hope for the system to function properly in the future? It’s hard to tell at the moment, but this match was certainly a step in the right direction.
Liverpool are now in fourth place, four points off Manchester City at the top, though Pep Guardiola’s team have a game in hand on all the close followers, including the Reds. Spurs are another four points and two places down, but they too have a game in hand. There is still a very long way to go, and the season in the Premier League continues to deliver on the promise of unpredictability so far.
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