Digging Deeper Into Liverpool’s 2-1 Defeat to Tottenham Hotspur

Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

With a loss to Tottenham Hotspur in the books, we take a closer look at what it all means for the Reds.

What an awful match. It wasn’t even Liverpool that were particularly awful - in fact the Reds were quite good despite everything Tottenham and the referee threw at them, but it wasn’t enough to keep the unbeaten streak alive. Honestly so much of the conversation will be around the officiating mistakes that it’s hard to talk about anything else, but as things began to fall apart around them, the players handled themselves with composure and at least didn’t get sent off for arguing.

Now join us as we examine some of the narratives, tactics, reactions, and questions Liverpool will be dealing with and the fans will be talking about in the aftermath.

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Talking Tactics

Not sure if this goes along with the “Dissecting the Narrative” or Tactics these days because it’s happened so often, but once again Liverpool went down a goal and a man in the first half. This time, it was poor Curtis Jones on the receiving end of a red card, after going for the ball and slipping, the collision being called serious foul play. Only this time, it got exponentially worse, when Simon Hooper awarded Diogo Jota a second yellow, sending Liverpool down to nine after he shouldn’t have received the first yellow in the first place. What an insane turn of events.

By all rights, it was an interesting match until the referee decided to take things into his own hands and win things for Spurs. Luis Diaz’s goal to put the Reds ahead was wrongly ruled offside (even the PGMOL admitted it following the match), and poor Joel Matip paid the price, handing Spurs their winning goal.

How The Players And Managers Reacted

Needless to say that all of the talking points following the match are about the officiating and the levels of terrible they were. It’s getting harder and harder to justify the treatment by officials towards Liverpool these days, especially when it results in a loss to end a 19 game unbeaten streak.

What Happens Next

Well Cody Gakpo is out for a spell, and both Diogo Jota and Curtis Jones are banned for at least the next match against Brighton and Hove Albion barring an appeal to one or both of the red cards. There is also likely not to be any change following the errors the officials made in the match, so those points we lost due to their “human errors” will likely never be recovered.

Onward to Thursday’s Europa League match against Union Saint-Gilloise, where at leas Gakpo will likely be the only one missing that wasn’t missing before.