Tottenham Hotspur absorbed Liverpool in their only vortex of chaos in north London on Sunday afternoon, but still came out on the wrong side of a 6-3 defeat.
There were nine goals, seven different scorers and a clear winner from the first whistle. After Luis Diaz’s opener, Spurs were always chasing but were never in danger of getting any points.
Liverpool win and Chelsea stumble against Everton Arne Slot’s side are four points clear at the top of the Premier League at the start of the day when they sit down to Christmas dinner. Tottenham will have their turkey from the relative depths of 11th place.
How the game developed
Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou had spent much of his pre-match press duties. bashing his critics. In between jabs at Jamie Carragher, the stalwart Australian admitted: “A big part of our game is entertainment.” Crucially, Postecoglou never clarified which set of fans would enjoy the viewing.
An increasingly distressed Tottenham Hotspur stadium looked on in horror as Liverpool quickly established dominance over the competition. The Reds had amassed eight shots (to Tottenham’s one) before Diaz got on the scoresheet in the 23rd minute. With Trent Alexander-Arnold’s outrageous cross, Diaz headed it unmarked six meters from goal.
Spurs had a box full of white shirts when Andy Robertson curled another delivery towards goal, but neither host managed to assert any authority over the situation. Alexis Mac Allister capitalized on the indecision and doubled Liverpool’s lead with a header that left Postecoglou shaking his head on the touchline.
Dejan Kulusevski has emerged as one of the TottenhamFew consistent players this season. The tireless Swede troubled Mac Allister off the ball in the 41st minute, setting up James Maddison for a goal that came just as any hope of a Spurs fightback had begun to fade.
Liverpool quickly extinguished those faint embers of optimism. Dominik Szoboszlai launched a simple point forward that completely derailed the Tottenham rearguard. Archie Gray and Radu Dragusin were ahead of two sets of red shirts when Mohamed Salah squared for Szoboszlai to make it 3-1 on the stroke of half-time.
Arne Slot’s visitors were in no forgiving mood, but Tottenham should not have been so complacent. The hosts are rarely reserved and were even wilder as they advanced in search of a way back into Sunday’s contest. Liverpool struck twice in quick succession on the counter, unleashing a pair of crisp forwards, both of which Salah finished to make it 5-1 with 30 minutes to play.
Kulusevski continued his fine individual form by combining with Dominic Solanke on the edge of the Liverpool box, volleying home the second of a typically chaotic Tottenham outing in north London. Solanke got on the scoreboard in the 83rd minute to bring Tottenham within two goals of an unthinkable turnaround.
Diaz capped off the festive cheer with a ninth and final goal five minutes from time, slotting into the bottom corner with a crisp volley.
Check out the player ratings for Tottenham vs Liverpool here.
In a game that was mentioned once or twice in the build-up to Sunday’s game, Luis Diaz has unpleasant memories of the Tottenham Hotspur stadium. The Colombia international was at the center of the biggest VAR controversy in Premier League history when his strike against the Spurs in September 2023 he was wrongly ruled out for offside.
No lack of communication could hamper Diaz this weekend, although the Liverpool striker benefited from a lack of dialogue between Pedro Porro and Dragusin, sneaking between the two defenders to head in a deserved opener .
There was so much confidence coursing through Diaz, who proved to be a brilliant nuisance across the pitch in an itinerant centre-forward role, that he attempted a fake rabona, sending Porro to the turf with a devilish dummy in the second half .
The in-form striker scored the goal of the night but could have finished with a hat-trick. Diaz had five shots on goal, the same number as the entire Spurs team combined.
Telling your center backs to straddle the halfway line is all well and good the fastest player in the league and a World Cup winner are your defenders. However, this high-speed act soon turns into self-immolation when you line up with a defensive partnership of an 18-year-old midfielder and Radu Dragusin.
Archie Gray did his best to slow the flood of redshirts, but he can only drag his angular frame in front of so many shots. Dragusin spent most of the competition running powerless towards his own finish line, constantly chasing a fleet of red buses that he would never catch.
Postecoglou’s approach earned Tottenham all three of their goals, but also contributed to the six he conceded. Had Liverpool been a little more ruthless, the scoreboard could have moved beyond the realms of tennis to cricket.
Arne Slot came perilously close to taking over at Tottenham in the summer of 2023. In the end, the former Feyenoord boss opted to stay in the Netherlands, while Spurs snapped up Postecoglou.
Both clearly aspire to an attractive style of football, but Slot has proven to be a deceptively pragmatic manager. Unlike his opposite number, the Dutch manager has repeatedly shown his ability to alter matches with in-game tactical tweaks; however, Slot had his setup from the first whistle on Sunday.
Dropping Cody Gakpo from the front line and pushing Diaz into a more hybrid role in Liverpool’s press left Spurs completely bewildered. The Colombian international followed Yves Bissouma, a bottleneck in Tottenham’s build-up and forcing the hosts to push forward aimlessly.
Despite scoring three goals, Spurs were limited to just nine shots – only once all season has Postecoglou’s all-out attacking unit registered fewer efforts in a Premier League game.
