A disappointing week for Liverpool, with a 1-0 defeat away at Tottenham Hotspur succeeding an underwhelming home draw with Manchester United.
Michael Cole voice: “The streak… is over!”
An underwhelming start to 2025: the order of the day of Arne Slot’s Liverpool. I deliberately refrained from writing in the wake of the final whistle on Sunday afternoon. It felt like a loss — the stadium was agitated and tense — in combination with the fact that reactionary and overly-extreme content isn’t particularly for me. So, this piece postdates further reflection after rewatching both that chaotic 90, as well as the one last night.
Are you a glass half empty, or a glass half full kind of guy? A horrific first half showing at Anfield was epitomised by a damning statistic – one that is truly uncharacteristic for an Arne Slot side. The Dutchman’s Reds became the first side in the Premier League — this season — to fail to register a tackle in an entire half of football. Liverpool looked remarkably inactive off the ball and the data reinforced that. ‘If I have to make a tackle then I have already made a mistake,’ stated legendary defender Paolo Maldini, to the contrary.
Tactical setups and analytics are redundant when the application isn’t there. Manchester United outworked Liverpool throughout and overloaded Trent Alexander-Arnold.
It isn’t entirely fun writing about Manchester United’s successful implementation of a game plan at the expense of Liverpool. This iteration of the former were wildly more structured than Ten Hag’s chaotic and unstructured mess who whimpered their way to a 3-0 home defeat in August. Liverpool underwhelmed, but the Red Devils had nullified them throughout.
Application and effort levels were in abundance yesterday, compared to Sunday’s showing, yet the Reds weren’t quite at their best as they fell to Ange’s Tottenham:
A first leg of a two-legged tie serves as the ideal place — if anywhere — for a brilliant 24-game unbeaten run to falter, yet that shouldn’t detract from the fact that Liverpool have been handed a fairly abrupt wake up call in the last few weeks. Slot will be well aware: Liverpool will not be able to coast their way towards silverware this season, regardless of the sizeable gap they have created for themselves at the summit of the league.
Just an entire month to wait before Liverpool will attempt to extract their revenge in front of a (hopefully) raucous Anfield. As frustrating as the Bergvall controversy remains, successful sides aren’t afforded the luxury of feeling aggrieved or sorry for themselves. Much like the contractual circus; Liverpool must bite their tongue and — excuse the cliche — *find a way*. The rampant and ruthless Reds of weeks past must eradicate their charitable side; Liverpool provided Tottenham with only their second clean sheet in all competitions since the end of October.
Perhaps we needed a fresh reminder of the unpleasant taste of defeat, after all four months have passed since Callum Hudson-Odoi was disturbingly enabled to score a bread-and-butter Callum Hudson-Odoi goal in front of the Anfield Road End. Beginning with Accrington Stanley on Saturday, Liverpool must swiftly kick back into rhythm to ensure that such feeling is excluded from the camp. If — unthinkably — Liverpool were to replicate another stunning four-month unbeaten streak, then large masses of silverware will almost certainly be paraded on the city’s waterfront on a double-decker bus in the month of May.
I’m not sure that the match could have opposed December’s 6-3 any more than it did. That night, Tottenham’s gung-Ho approach in combination with an 18-year-old central midfielder at the back was seemingly always going to end one way. In essence, Liverpool were the grown ups in the room that night, they were not streetwise for the entirety of the 90 yet displayed brilliance for 65, and admirable composure and discipline. Postecoglou had jokingly tipped a 0-0; there was more probability of twenty goals rattling the back of the net than zero on the 22nd.
Szoboszlai’s illness hampered Liverpool’s chances. His nous as a second-striker in the PL fixture had troubled Spurs throughout; the Hungarian’s physical and aerial qualities were used to effectively bully Archie Gray and Djed Spence. ‘You know what you get’ from Szoboszlai: intelligent third-man runs, slipping past high defensive lines with an ease that leaves him largely undetected. His ability to exploit spaces and create opportunities for his teammates was significant – he had stepped up by grabbing a goal, registered an assist, got himself involved in two others, won six of his eight duels, succeeded with both of his crosses, and recorded a fabulous combined xG+xA of 2.29.
Dominik Szoboszlai action map vs Tottenham (December 2024)
Liverpool didn’t cope well without Szoboszlai both on-and-off the ball, with Curtis Jones producing one of his more quieter displays of the season in the equivalent position. The former is an extremely ferocious yet tactically astute and intelligent presser, and the Reds missed him dearly:
Spurs opted for a more solid and flat midfield three before Bentancur’s frightening injury, and still remained watertight even with Kulusevski dropping in there with Johnson’s introduction. We know that Tottenham press very aggressively and go man-for-man — they did the same thing in the 6-3 in a similar 4-1-4-1 — but Liverpool appeared to have forgotten the blueprint in the 17-day gap.
Very sloppy from Quansah who endured a tough time of it before having to come off, but this evidences the benefits of Spurs’ man-to-man press. Solanke is a nuisance off-the-ball and acted as the leader of the press with the wide men following suit when he jumped. Konate and Trent’s absences were felt from a build-up perspective; Liverpool had nothing going for them down the right hand side, with Bradley naturally looking slightly rusty in his first start in six weeks.
Quansah was targeted slightly, inevitably given that the other central defender was Virgil Van Dijk. The intelligent Solanke would block the passing lane into the Dutchman before jumping onto Quansah to make it difficult for the Englishman. Solanke was pivotal in stopping the pass into Gravenberch before it could even be attempted, thus forcing the slightly awkward Quansah to kick it out for a throw on more than one occasion.
Slot’s Reds did tweak things slightly to bypass Tottenham’s press and effectively get a grip of the game, as they enjoyed a decent spell towards the end of the first half. Liverpool countered Spurs going man-to-man by throwing a cat amongst the pigeons: Mac Allister dropped deep to pick up the ball while Gravenberch floated out wide, with Bradley tucking inside and making runs into the channel. This at least gave us a platform to retain possession and create a few half chances – a better ball from Tsimikas and Diogo Jota would almost certainly have broken the deadlock.
Via The Fatigue Index
Ryan Gravenberch needs a serious rest. That’s the bottom line. But where? Scientist Simon Brundish claims that over 30% of a game-time jump on a player’s ‘3 season average’ is contraindicated, yet Liverpool’s Dutchman’s game time is more than double that. This is a terrific athlete and exceptionally talented footballer who Liverpool must protect; Gravenberch is irreplaceable – internally, at least. Any possibility of a burn out must be eradicated and Liverpool will know that being safe is better than sorry. Grav, and a few others, looked extremely slow and tired chasing back for the Spurs transitions in the closing stages. Given that Nottingham Forest are the strongest counter attacking side in the league, Slot must reassess some of his thinking in order to exorcise his demons of the distributor of his one and only league defeat.
Remember that: one and only league defeat.
Featured Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash.