A nine man Liverpool side suffer a second consecutive defeat on their travels with a resounding 4-0 thumping by an impressive Tottenham Hotspur outfit.
Last week`s defeat to Stoke City may have been unfortunate but this result was far from it. Spurs totally outplayed the visiting Merseysiders and dominated the match from start to finish, although their task was made easier by the sending offs of Charlie Adam and Martin Skrtel.
The only change to the Liverpool team sheet showed Andy Carroll selected ahead of Dirk Kuyt as partner to Louis Suarez up front. Injuries to Glen Johnson and Martin Kelly meant Martin Skrtel continued his run in an unfamiliar right-back role.
Despite the team only showing the one change the players looked completely alien to one another in a sloppy and nervous opening to the game. With only 2 minutes on the clock a collision between Daniel Agger and Lucas Leiva handed Emmanuel Adebayor a decent chance but he pulled his shot wide of the goal. The incident was indicative of the careless way Liverpool had started the match and they continued to be second best in all the early exchanges. Gareth Bale soon skipped past Skrtel and but for a good block by Agger his low cross seemed destined to be converted by the lively Jermain Defoe.
The goal Spurs had been threatening duly arrived after 6 minutes when Luka Modric fired a beautiful drive in off the crossbar from outside of the area. Although the strike gave Pepe Reina no chance, possession had initially been gifted away when Agger continued his eventful start to the game by slipping over. Unfortunately for the Dane and Liverpool, the disappointment of falling behind was compounded by a side injury sustained during the seemingly innocuous fall. Despite soldering on until the 26th minute, the clearly struggling centre-back had to be replaced by Uruguayan debutant Sebastian Coates.
Liverpool showed a rare glimpse of attacking intent when Suarez slotted home after 17 minutes but the goal was rightly ruled out for offside. Sadly for the men from Anfield the effort would prove to be a rare highlight in a depressing afternoon and the match was soon all but over as a contest following the first of two dismissals.
Charlie Adam had already received a yellow card following an earlier niggling foul when he raised his foot in a challenge with Scott Parker leaving referee Mike Jones little option but to produce a second booking and the subsequent red card. If the home side had dominated beforehand they were now totally in charge.
In truth Liverpool did well to survive until half-time still only one goal behind but if the away side had hoped the break would change the outcome of events, it took only a few seconds for reality to strike as Defoe instantly missed an easy chance following yet another flowing Spurs move.
Liverpool`s poor performance continued for long periods and they continuously gave away possession and fouls in equal measure. One such foul on Bale after 62minutes resulted in Skrtel picking up his second yellow card of a torrid afternoon and in the process he joined Adam in receiving his marching orders. Moments later and with confusion rife as to how the visitors would reshuffle with their remaining nine men, the result was put out of any doubt when Defoe raced clear and held off the recovering José Enrique before firing low into the net.
With the result now beyond any doubt at 2-0, any remaining fight quickly vanished and it only took a further couple of minutes for things to get even worse for the Reds. The usually dependable Reina spilled a long range Defore shot right into the path of Adebayor, who calmly evaded the Spanish goalkeeper before slotting home from close range. The goal was thoroughly deserved for the controversial Togolese striker who had been a constant threat throughout the game.
Following the third goal the game quietened down and petered towards the final whistle with Spurs happy to pass the ball around and simply keep possession. Kenny Dalglish sent on Craig Bellamy and Jay Spearing but ultimately Liverpool failed to muster any attempts on target throughout the entire match. The misery of an awful day was then compounded in injury time when Adebayor did well to control and finish a Giovani dos Santos cross to score his second and Tottenham`s fourth and final goal of the game.
Verdict
A truly terrible performance. No complaints can be aimed at the referee either this week with all his decisions regarding yellow cards etc spot on. I`m not sure what was wrong today but we just never got going. We made a poor start and were sloppy throughout. Despite only being one goal down at the time, any hope of getting back into the match went with Adam`s dismissal. Even with Adam on the pitch we were losing every midfield battle and were constantly overrun by Spurs` pace and directness. Although injuries clearly contributed to it, playing Skrtel against Bale had disaster written all over it and so it proved to be. On this display we can only hope the return of Steven Gerrard is imminent to give the team some additional leadership and commitment. That said, full plaudits must go to Tottenham who played fantastically well today and totally deserved the three points. The League Cup game against Brighton in midweek now takes on extra significance as we try to overcome this awful performance and result.
Click here for Kenny Dalglish’s post match comments on the game
Liverpool line-up: Reina, Skrtel, Carragher, Agger (Coates 26), Enrique, Henderson, Adam, Lucas, Downing (Spearing 70), Suarez (Bellamy 70), Carroll.
Unused subs: Doni, Maxi, Kuyt, Robinson.
good write up i came here to wind you guys up but i dont have the heart now. well written piece
Cheers jljyid… I think we all expected a close game between two evenly matched teams but it turned out to be a one sided beating. Although we were terrible, Spurs would have won most matches with that performance.
With you jljyid… thought I’d come over for a giggle, (not that there’s anyone here!), but after such a level headed write up it just wouldn’t be right.
Third spurs fan to agree , just can’t have a go.. good article,… we played the best for a while, and your team were in disarry… good luck for the Brighton game… but beware brighton are top of Champoinship, and Gus Poyet is a very good manager, and he must have seen this match…
Though I wanted us to score more goals to close our goal diff gap, it was sad to see it happen to a club like Liverpool. One of the clubs I always look out for their result. I even went to Dortmund to watch the UEFA cup final with Alaves. So there is a soft spot there. So it was sad to see the 4 nil. Also after such a ridiculously decently balanced article, it will really take a heartless idoit to have a pop or a giggle. So am with the other 3 Spurs fans here.
If I was a Liverpool fan I would have serious concerns about the number of fouls your defenders were commiting today and even more concerns about Charlie Adam. The guy was lucky not to get more red cards last season and hasn’t changed. He didn’t “raise his foot” when he went for Parker, he drove his studs into the side of Parker’s knee. To do that when you have already been booked shows a complete lack of professionalism, he could cost Liverpool a lot of points. I’m also not sure why you are playing Carroll if you’re not going to give him crosses. By my reckoning he got his first in the 90th minute. Suarez was also pretty poor. The midfield was just outplayed, on that form Parker and Modric in combination could embarass a few more before the end of the season.
A few weeks ago we lost to City 5-1. It happens.
I bielieve The Kop will come back & Spurs can do it better
Are you Arsenal in disguise?? 😉
Not heartless to have a giggle. All banter, see you at the KOP..your chance to have a giggle back?
I’m sure we’ll bounce back. I too would have gone with Kuyt or maybe Bellamy over Carroll but i doubt it would have made any difference. Everyone has at least one off day a season where nothing goes right. As you mention Spurs had it against Man City. Thankfully Arsenal seem to have had about 4 off days already which will help us both in the quest for Champions League qualification! See you at Anfield in February…
Very nice article. tbh, our loss to City was probably worse than your loss to us…. we atleast had 11 men on the pitch! Teams have off days and that was just one of yours. Still think it will be Spurs and LFC battling it out for 4th place… Arsenal are looking like they have no chance… (famous last words…)
4th place will be Tottenham, simple as. Liverpool don’t have the cover in defence to sustain a challenge, suarez will cost you plenty if he keeps up his attitude and carroll looks lost in the formation. Harry was right, even with 11v11 we looked far better.
lol embarassing for the scousers
We played better with 10 than with 11, it took until we had 9 men for Spurs to get their 2nd so i think the 4-0 isn’t even a fair reflection although it did look like Spurs backed off a bit at 3-0. Adam wasn’t having a good day at all even before he got sent off I barely noticed him. Lucas looked like he did in the beginning of his LFC career, running around like a headless chicken. Henderson was absent for the majority of the game. Carroll looked lost out on the wing, don’t know why he chose to start the second half there when it looked like Suarez wanted to swap. I felt the yellow for Coates was harsh considering he got the ball. I don’t think there were too many other fouls that were given when they shouldn’t have been, although i think the ref got a bit card happy but both sending offs were right unfortunatley. Our only decent performance was from Enrique
I think we are generally ok for defensive cover – it was just one of those days. We have Carragher/Agger/Skrtel/Coates/Wilson at centre-back, Johnson/Kelly/Flanagan at right-back and Enrique/Aurelio/Robinson at left-back. There is enough quality and strength in depth there to be ok. The middle of the park was where the game was won and lost for me. Adam had a shocker, Henderson is still trying to find his feet and looks short of confidence, Downing was too busy trying to help out Skrtel and Lucas just couldn?t cope on his own with the movement and strength of your midfield.
You must be concerned that even after spending £100m plus, you are still some way behind us in quality and style of play!
Yes spent 100mil but gained 70 mil