Gallery: Player Ratings – Liverpool 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur

Subs

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The only glimmer on the horizon right now is that there are substitutes who *can* play

Ndombele showed more than anyone that good players can retain possession, even under pressure, and that really good players can progress the ball. Moura moves the ball away from a defender so quickly he draws a foul, at the very least. If he’s not Sonny, he is of that ilk. If not in this game, Lo Celso also shows promise.

And these players can come into midfield where we have to improve the most: we have to exert some control and develop some creativity and threat.

The TV seemed to pick up Jesus telling the players in the warm up to ‘attack, attack, attack’. Yeh, right. That strategy was in place for all of fifty seconds. Then it was a four-five defensive unit.

At Spurs, because we struggle so badly at home against this tactic, we forget that nine times out of ten the tactic is overwhelmed by the team capable of actually playing football.

It was also painful to watch after, by general consensus, we played the pressing game we should be playing last time out to great success. After discovering a winning formula, Pochettino downplayed the significance perhaps because he knew he would abandon it immediately – he changed both a winning team and a successful plan. Hmmm?

We had one moment manufactured by Son and Kane – right now, to be frank, two race horses in a donkey derby. Late on, some subs appeared and actually demonstrated that they could retain possession, even move the ball forward.

Most sickening of all for Spurs supporters, as we plunge close to the relegation dogfight, the whole approach made the gulf in class between ourselves and Liverpool absolutely in-your-face-with-a-klaxon obvious: we look sh*t.