Well that was better, I suppose. It didn’t feel that way at full time, but on reflection this was mostly good up until both teams made substitutions and the game turned on its head. Thankfully we had a four goal cushion, and thankfully Paul Tierney and VAR chose to ignore a reasonable penalty appeal for Spurs that could have got them back to 4-3. Had that happened, I think we’d have blown it.
There were serious flashbacks to last season when we blew a 3-0 lead to Spurs and then Jota popped up seconds later to win it. This was so close to the same thing happening, and it would mostly have been on Klopp for the substitutions he made, which really unsettled us. However, we’re 4-0 up, he should have been able to send on the entire u18 side and still hold onto the result.
I think I’ll just focus mostly on the good though, as we’ve not had too much of that over the past 5 or 6 weeks. We played pretty well for an hour. Very well even. The best we’ve played for a couple of months, easily. Of course it helps when you put a few chances away. We’ve probably ‘played’ better than this but when you don’t convert any chances it’s easy to overlook that.
I also think the opponent is a factor. Spurs are so easy to play against it’s a miracle they are in the top five. At half time I really thought there was a good chance we’d get six or seven, and had Klopp not made those changes I’m sure we would have. So fucking easy to play against with that high line and no pressure on the ball.
The funny thing was for the first few minutes we couldn’t even get a kick of the ball. As much as I’m being critical of Spurs, one thing I will give them credit for is some of their one touch passing and movement. We couldn’t get near them at times, but it didn’t really get them anywhere because it wasn’t in dangerous areas.
And then when we did finally get the ball, we looked like we were in the mood and they were struggling to cope with us. The first thing to say is that Mo finally shrugged off that wretched form he’s been in since coming back from the injury. This was the Salah we saw all season prior to that injury. Not brilliant, occasionally infuriating, but always a danger and constant threat to either score or create a goal.
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