Multi-objective thrillers are all very good if you're on the right side. Seven goals in a cup tie on Thursday and this bit of north London was bouncing. Nine goals on Sunday had exactly the opposite effect.
The hall was almost empty when Ange Postecoglou dutifully trudged around at the end and expressed his festive appreciation for the support. It had been undermined long before. Many Tottenham fans headed for the exit as the fifth went in.
They probably should have known this wouldn't be the end. Three more goals followed and after Dominic Solanke struck in the third for Spurs, there was a brief whiff of one of football's least likely comebacks.
It didn't last long, however, as Luis Diaz scored the sixth for Liverpool to give the visitors an emphatic win. One they deserved for the control they exerted during the first hour of the match.
Arne Slot's team took the chaos out of a Spurs match and that is no easy feat. They were excellent.
There was no trace of the chaos that usually surrounded Postecoglou's team and that was the most sobering factor. That was the cold, hard truth of the rift between these teams.
One at the top, fully formed, and one sitting in the middle of the table, floundering in a bit of a mess.
When asked at the end of October whether he would finish 10th in the Premier League, the Spurs boss replied that he expected it to be exciting if his team were still in the same position at Christmas, but that he had no intention of to be tenth.
They are 11th and it's hard to see how this changes significantly until he gets some of his key players fit again.
At the back they are missing four-fifths of his strongest defense. Archie Gray is 18 years old and not a centre-half, despite performing capably in the role, but the proposition was different against a team with title aspirations and rising confidence.
“We've had shorter turnarounds than almost any opponent we've played against so far,” grumbled Postecoglou, whose options were so limited that he went in with the same team as against United.
This marked a third start in eight days for Djed Spence, an outsider who waited two and a half years for his first start.
Sure enough, Spurs were flat from the start, low on energy and forced into early mistakes at the back. Liverpool barely gave them any room to move until they were 2-0 up.
Two headers, the result of constant pressure but soft goals from Tottenham's corner. No pressure on the cross for the first and no challenge on Luis Diaz's header. Two players, neither of them natural defenders, trying to take command of a cross for the second time but failing.
The only time they produced what we have come to recognize as the true spirit of a Postecoglou team was for five minutes in the first half around James Maddison's goal.
Then Dominik Szoboszlai scored the third for Liverpool as they cut Spurs open with a long pass, a tap-in, a ringing dribble and a back pass, and the reluctance to throw caution to the wind made sense.
Solanke has been excellent in recent weeks, holding the ball, carrying his team onto the pitch and making Spurs tick. Here he was dominated by Virgil van Dijk.
Dejan Kulusevski, Tottenham's best player by far this season, scored the second and his fifth in five games, but things were slow until the match was effectively over.
Most of the time you could find him wandering around on his own, trying his hardest to force something out of nothing.
Heung-min Son on the left was the player Postecoglou had hoped would do damage in the areas behind Trent Alexander-Arnold, but the Liverpool right-back gave him very few chances and still managed to be creative going forward .
There was little threat up front for Spurs in the first hour and hardly any resistance at the back and this did not change until Liverpool made it 5-1 and drove home to the chagrin of Arne Slot.
The final half hour looked more like Tottenham's usual end-to-end chaos, but until then they looked for all the world to be what they are: patched up, low on fuel and playing a brand of football too open for their own good. against the strongest team in the Premier League.
Very nice for the neutral. “Aren't you entertained?” as Postecoglou joked on Thursday after winning 4-3 in the Carabao Cup quarter-final against Manchester United.
It's true that it's a lot of fun. And perhaps, as Postecoglou insists, it will have its benefits in the long run once they have strengthened the squad, be it with returning players or new recruits.
“We are still participating in all the competitions, so it doesn't get any easier,” he said. “The schedule isn't going to change.”
The manager needs something to help his team cope. Against a serious team like Liverpool it seemed like a mismatch, and Slot's team will soon be in the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup again.
Comments