Well, that was a really poor performance by Liverpool FC. The only thing that saved us was Spurs being equally as bad. Their goal scorer clearly should’ve walked for his shocking tackle on Tsimikas that resulted in him having to leave the pitch due to receiving treatment, and Spurs scoring whilst we were a man down.
Ultimately, as the skipper said in his post match interview, we lost because didn’t take our chances and not because of the referee. It wasn’t even just our finishing that was off, it was our final pass or delivery into the box. Spurs had a makeshift defence, the same one we put 6 past not that long ago, yet we failed to truly test their new keeper who looked ropey and dropped a couple of simple catches.
The VAR also missed quite a clear and obvious penalty at the end when Kulusevski brought down Jones, but to piggy back off what Virgil said, we need to make our own luck and stop relying on what everybody knows is a refereeing body not fit for purpose. If we’d come away with a draw because of a penalty, it’s hard to argue we’d actually have deserved it.
Alisson – woeful performance in possession, to be honest. He frequently played people into trouble with his lackadaisical passing and got caught on the ball dithering. Had Virgil not bailed him out he’d have been badly at fault for a totally avoidable goal. The only reason that I’m rating him this highly is because he was quite good at coming off his line quickly to take pressure off the defenders. He filled our defence with nerves though and that spread like wild fire through the whole team by the end of the game. 5/10
Bradley – looked rusty. He took some poor touches and on one occasion just failed to take the ball with him at all. As always with Bradley though, he battled for everything and never backed down. Made some really crunching tackles and ultimately we didn’t concede with him on the pitch. 6/10
Quansah – first of all, I hope the lad is okay. Never nice seeing a young man have to leave the pitch due to chest pain. I don’t want to be too harsh on him because it’s still unclear what was wrong with him and how that affected his performance. His performance was sluggish though. 5/10
Virgil – was probably our only player to play consistently well for the full 90 minutes. Defended well every time he was called upon. You can see how frustrated he is by the basic mistakes going on around him and he showed good leadership in the first half an hour, really trying to calm down the young lads around him when everyone was giving away simple passes. Man of the Match. 8/10
Tsimikas – the only thing you can really say is he just isn’t good enough. His set piece delivery was okay, but everything else was miles off it. What was the most concerning was his movement off the ball when we had possession in the midfield. He was hiding behind players and not even attempting to offer an angle for a pass. He was probably the biggest reason our attempts to play out from the back failed all game. Then he went down crying about the Bergvall tackle trying to get him sent off, which resulted in him having to leave the pitch during the 30 seconds Spurs scored. It was a second yellow, but unless something is broken or you are bleeding, just get up and don’t risk having to sit on the side lines at a crucial stage of the game. 5/10
Gravenberch – really hasn’t been at his best lately. It’s blatant that he needs a rest but it’s also blatant that he’s the only player in our squad who can play the 6 how Slot wants it to be played. Slot simply doesn’t trust Endo or Morton to do the job he wants. If we fail to recruit a midfielder who can push him Gravenberch his place this window it could cost us, because he is looking very jaded. 5/10
Mac Allister – other than Van Dijk, he was the only starter who didn’t underperform. He played some really neat passes to break the lines and battled all game. We looked immediately weaker when he left the pitch. 7/10
Jones – it’s so hard to defend him right now. His last 2 performances have been absolutely dreadful. He’s not defending, he’s not pressing, he’s not running with the ball, he’s not creating, he’s not scoring. Why even bother putting the kit on lad? He was the Scouser in our team last night and he looked the least interested out of everyone on the pitch. Show some passion for crying out loud. 3/10
Salah – tried to make things happen but his passing, touch and crossing was uncharacteristically bad. The game was crying out for Elliott or Chiesa to start. Salah really should’ve been rested after looking less effective against Man United only a few days earlier. 5/10
Jota – started well and made some very good driving runs through the heart of the Spurs team. He even got Bissouma booked. I’m assuming he just tired due to being out for some time because he then completely failed to run at Bissouma again and test his metal. He was rightly subbed as he ceased to be effective after half time. 5/10
Gakpo – very much like Salah. Tried to make things happen and was looking the most likely to do so. It was not the right decision to sub him off in my opinion, so I can only assume the medical team made the decision he could only play an hour pre-game. He did make more appearance than any other Liverpool player in 2024 so he arguably needed a rest. 6/10
Endo (Quansah, 30th minute) – came on at CB early in the game and to be honest he was brilliant. Won every header and duel, didn’t make any silly passes that put us under pressure, didn’t give away any silly free kicks, played some incisive balls into the midfield and just all in all was superb. He didn’t really have enough time in midfield to judge his performance there, but we did look noticeably weaker as a team without Mac Allister in there in my opinion. That’s probably more a credit to Macca than slight against Endo though. 7/10
Trent (Bradley, 60th minute) – much better performance from him but still way off being good enough. Solanke’s disallowed goal really should’ve stood. If you’re having to draw vertical dotted lines up to a shoulder then it’s not offside for me. The frame rate of the cameras isn’t fast enough to be accurate down to a few inches and had that been the other way around I’d have felt robbed. It was laziness from Trent that even made it controversial though, he was slow to react to everyone else stepping up. Unlucky not to score an outrageous goal mind you. 5/10
Nunez (Jota, 60th minute) – was a real handful and drew the only good save out of the Kinsky all night, but some of his decision making is so frustrating. In extra time when we needed a goal he tried to hit a 60 yard through ball for Salah and got it totally wrong. It wasted our last real chance of building up some pressure and pegging Spurs back in their own box. 6/10
Diaz (Gakpo, 60th minute) – he came on and to be fair he committed players and his willingness to run with the ball was the reason why Bergvall was even on a yellow card. However I’ve got to comment on his penalty shout where he was ‘pushed’ by Porro. Just get up. It was a blatant dive and he should’ve been booked. Embarrassing to be honest. 5/10
Konate (Mac Allister, 80th minute) – this was like watching the Konate of last season who got dropped for Quansah. This was the Konate that get’s bullied physically by people half his size and can’t make a split second decision correctly. It didn’t feel like a sensible decision to push Endo into midfield after him and Van Dijk had pretty much shut the doot on Spurs even looking like scoring unelss Alisson gave them the ball in our penalty area. The ball into the channel for Solanke was going away from goal and there was absolutely no need for Konate to come steaming across leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the box. However, if you do make that decision then it’s fine, but only if you make sure you get there and just boot the ball into touch. Instead he tried to screen the ball, and the way he was nudged off it so effortlessly was genuinely pathetic. I hope Endo plays CB against Accrington Stanley because he might have a genuine chance of becoming Virgil’s partner for the remainder of the season at this rate. 3/10
All I can say is thank god we drew Spurs in the Semi-final, because if we’d played like that against Newcastle or Arsenal we’d be out already. As we did get Spurs, we’ve somehow come away with a result from an away leg that actually puts is in a very strong position for the second leg at home.
We’ve simply got to improve for the Nottingham Forest game next week. This was not a massively weakened Liverpool side and we rolled over for what is frankly, a terrible Spurs team, allowing them to take a lead to Anfield.
I don’t think we need to panic yet because of all the competitions, this one is bottom of the pile for us but it means absolutely everything to Ange Postecoglu, the Spurs players and the Spurs fans. Sometimes desire is enough to overcome any amount of difference in quality.
We’ll bounce back and I really believe we’ll sign a midfielder this month to end the over reliance on Gravenberch, Szoboszlai and Mac Allister. I hope we add a left back too, but with the way Beck and Chambers are performing on loan, we may hold fire on that and hope Robbo comes good now Tsimikas is available as a rotation option to give him a rest.
Written by MK Scouser January 09 2025 10:28:58
