David Hytner was at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to witness Liverpool’s long-awaited return to form. His report has landed. You know the pack drill: clickity click! Thanks for reading this MBM. Keep safe and warm. Nighty night!
A mightily miffed Mourinho speaks. “It’s hard to resist so many individual defensive mistakes. It is impossible. Unless you score four goals against Liverpool, which is not easy. But every time we act, the next mistake was coming. The first ball was the beginning of everything. The first seconds, a mistake, and a big chance for Mane. The team was very confident, playing well. We scored a goal but it was offside, by inches but offside, and we were stable. But the goal was a replica of the first chance they had. So between one minute and 48, the same mistake. At half-time we lost Harry, and in the first minute of the second half, another mistake, another goal. Good reaction for 2-1, the team fighting on the pitch, but one more mistake, and 3-1. Very difficult to fight against so many mistakes. Some of the guys are very disappointed, some of them had very positive performances but we were punished by individual mistakes.” He also reports that Harry Kane is “injured in both ankles. To cope with one pain, he probably could continue, but both are very painful and sore, and getting big. He just couldn’t.”
Klopp’s turn. “I am delighted. It was a great game, super-intense. We scored the goals in the right moments. Wonderful goals. The right people scored the goals. All good apart from Joel Matip having to come off. What I saw today was not about form: it was who we are. That was us. Today, the second half especially, that was us. A massive fight and football on top of that. We defended really well. It was just a good performance, and a lot of things I wanted to see. Offensively we coped really well with their formation. Our counter-press was really good. The last line defended really well. I didn’t see it coming, but I was not negative about the second half!”
Trent Alexander-Arnold – out of sorts recently, but back on top of his game tonight – talks to BT Sport. “It’s what we needed. I thought we deserved it. We dominated most of the game. Obviously they’ve had an early goal disallowed, which could have changed the game, but we came here with a plan and executed it perfectly. It was a little bit tough when they scored, but we deserved the three points. Nothing’s really changed, we’re the same team we always have been. Everyone was at it.”
Mourinho and Klopp share a sporting fist-bump in pouring rain. No rancour today. Spurs had their moments, but were well beaten in the end, Liverpool rediscovering their attacking mojo, to an extent that there wasn’t too much pressure applied to their injury-ravaged, cobbled-together defence. The defending champions move into fourth spot, two points ahead of West Ham United, who they play on Sunday. That should be a cracker. Spurs stay in sixth.
Liverpool’s long wait for goals and a Premier League win comes to an end. They were back to something approaching their best tonight. Rumours of their demise have been greatly exaggerated.
90 min: A strange looping backpass by Milner nearly sends Son clear down the middle. Phillips does extremely well to come across and win a last-ditch header to deny Son.
88 min: Origi’s first act is to clumsily trundle the ball out of play for a goal kick. “VAR is the pits,” writes Colum Fordham. “It saved Liverpool’s bacon at the start and then denied them Salah’s wonderful strike. We’d have had a 4-2 classic as opposed to a dastardly dull 3-1 affair. But seriously, it breaks the flow of the game so much.”
85 min: A long ball is launched in the hope of finding Bale on the edge of the Liverpool box. Alisson comes out of his area to head powerfully clear. Perhaps they should toss the gloves to Kelleher and play Alisson as emergency at centre-back?
84 min: Jones races down the right. He slips infield to Salah, who makes it to the edge of the box. Jones keeps going on the overlap. Salah tries to release the young midfielder with a cute backheel, but it doesn’t quite come off. Salah cocks his head back in despair. That could have been a fine goal.
83 min: Phillips hasn’t been tested much since coming on. Here he wins an important header, stopping Doherty’s long pass from reaching – and releasing – Son.
81 min: The last roll of the dice for Spurs as Bergwijn makes way for Bale. Liverpool won’t have forgotten about the 2018 Champions League final, you can be sure of that. He couldn’t, could he?
80 min: Liverpool faff around at the back, Alisson, Firmino and Mane over-elaborating. Hojbjerg nicks possession and clips in from the right. Liverpool are extremely fortunate that the cross sails way over Son’s head.
76 min: Salah turns on the jets and nearly gets the better of Doherty down the right. The Spurs defender does extremely well to keep up and close down the avenue of attack.
75 min: Liverpool re-establish their control and stroke it around. The clock ticks on. “It appears to me that PGMOL have told their officials not to call anything close and leave it all up to VAR,” suggests Graeme Thorn. “It doesn’t make for a great spectacle, even if the decisions are (eventually) correct. As an aside, the time to call that Firmino handball is before he sweeps it out to the left, and not 20 seconds later when the ball’s in the net.”
73 min: A rare period of extended Spurs possession. Liverpool hold their shape, and eventually Winks is forced to attempt an over-elaborate pass that sails out for a goal kick.
71 min: Firmino dribbles in from the left and tees up Thiago, who attempts to recreate Hojbjerg’s screamer but gets it all wrong, the ball sailing yards wide and high. Maybe his bandage momentarily slipped over his eyes.
69 min: It is tipping down in north London. “Clearly London has got some Trent control issues.” Peter Oh, ladies and gentlemen. He’s here all week. Try the cheese.
67 min: That’s taken a bit of puff out of the Spurs sail. Liverpool stroke it around, not minded to let slip their two-goal lead so quickly again. “Had the ball broken for Tottenham in that wrestle and they scored, I think VAR would have penalised Dier and not Firmino,” argues Gary Naylor. “Seems a bit strange.” Yep, you’re almost certainly correct. VAR’s not very good, is it?
Sadio Mane slides in celebration. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
Yep, they’ve rediscovered it all right. Alexander-Arnold, deep on the right, fizzes a long diagonal pass towards Mane, just inside the Spurs box. Rodon should intercept, but lets it go. Mane meets it first time, and roofs an unstoppable shot into the top left. Liverpool re-establish their two-goal advantage!
Sadio Mane fires the third goal for the Reds. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
64 min: Salah fights his way down the right, getting the better of Winks and feeding Firmino in the box. Firmino lashes an ambitious effort into the side netting from a tight angle. Whatever happens here, Liverpool have certainly rediscovered their attacking verve.
63 min: A lull at last. Here’s Mary Waltz: “After a series of dull or disappointing big fixtures, we get an absolute cracking, back and forth drama fest. Lovely, skilled football. Plus two very angry managers. What’s not to like, eh?”
Martin Atkinson goes over to review the footage, and chalks the goal off. The ball clearly hit Firmino’s arm, though it had pinged off Dier’s first, as both were pushing and tugging each other. A reprieve for the hosts!
57 min: But this is being checked by VAR, because the ball clanked off Firmino’s hand at the start of the move, as the Liverpool man tussled with Dier.
Thiago, his head bound in white tape, is back, and quickly in the thick of it. He rolls a pass down the left for Mane, who plays a diagonal ball across the face of goal. Thiago dummies, Salah comes in from the right, bashing home from the edge of the box.
Mo Salah scores what appears t be the third Liverpool goal. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
51 min: Salah very nearly breaks clear down the inside-right channel. Dier comes across to cover and poke out for a corner. Liverpool don’t get their prize, though, as the flag goes up incorrectly for offside.
GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 1-2 Liverpool (Hojbjerg 49)
What a goal this is! Lamela grooves down the left and rolls infield for Hojbjerg, who hits a glorious first-time 25-yarder into the top right! The sweetest of strikes, cut across the ball! Alisson had no chance. Spurs are immediately back in it!
Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg fires Spurs back into the contest. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 0-2 Liverpool (Alexander-Arnold 47)
Mane robs Doherty down the left, enters the box and whacks towards the bottom right. Lloris parries, but only pushes out to Alexander-Arnold, who romps in from the wing and sends a fierce low diagonal shot into the bottom left.
Trent Alexander-Arnold doubles the Reds’ lead. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
46 min: Liverpool should be two up after a mere 20 seconds of the half. Salah and Firmino combine, the latter suddenly free in the box. He can’t sort his feet out to shoot and is forced wide right. He cuts back for Salah who blazes over wastefully. No matter, though, because …
Spurs get the second half underway, having made two changes. Winks and Lamela are on for Aurier and the injured Kane. Liverpool have made a change as well, Phillips coming on for the balsa-boned Matip.
A highly entertaining half. Son thought he’d put the hosts ahead early on, only to be caught offside by the VAR slide-rule. Instead, Firmino broke the deadlock on the stroke of half-time, ending Liverpool’s wait for a Premier League goal that had stretched to eight hours.
GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 0-1 Liverpool (Firmino 45+4)
Firmino ends Liverpool’s goal drought! Henderson shovels a pass down the inside-left channel for Mane, who chests down in the box and rolls across for Firmino, who can’t miss from a couple of yards! It had been coming.
Roberto Firmino opens the scoring. Photograph: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC/Getty Images
45 min +2:Liverpool press Spurs back in their own box. Thaigo, Robertson and Alexander-Arnold try to find the killer pass, but the home defence stays resolute.
45 min: Thiago sells Doherty an absurd dummy in the centre circle, and the Spurs defender is slightly fortunate not to go into the book for a confused lunge.
42 min: Thiago strokes a ball down the middle for Firmino, who immediately shuttles it towards Mane on his right. Mane has a dig but it’s straight at Lloris, who parries. Liverpool haven’t scored in the Premier League for nearly eight hours.
41 min: Alexander-Arnold and Salah one-two down the right, the latter entering the box and trying to find Mane in the middle with a low first-time cross. Mane can’t reach it. For a second, Spurs were in a spot of bother there.
37 min: Kane winced when he played that pass, but perhaps the pain in his ankle is subsiding, because he opts to have a proper lash at goal from 30 yards, even though he’s already heard the ref blow his whistle for offside. He’s unlikely to be blootering the ball for fun if there’s a problem, one would imagine.
36 min: Kane comes back on and immediately plays a glorious pass down the inside-right channel for Son. Alisson comes right to the edge of his box to claim. Son claims the catch was made outside the area, but neither ref nor VAR shows interest. Liverpool fly up the other end, and Mane appears to be clear down the middle. However Rodon slides in to tackle, another challenge that had to be perfectly timed. Magnificent defending.
