Outscored But Not Outplayed

Spurs Men fall to Liverpool despite a decent performance | Previewing the League Cup midweek match

Programming note:  Spurs Women's fixture against Everton was postponed due to the pitch at Brisbane Road being waterlogged. They don't have another match scheduled until after the international break, an away game at Chelsea on November 20, so the newsletter will be a little sparse on Spurs Women coverage for the next couple of weeks. However, we interviewed Kerys Harrop for the N17 Women podcast, so keep an ear out for that (releasing tomorrow, Tuesday the 8th).

Meanwhile, the Men's team is in the home stretch before the World Cup begins.

Tottenham 1 - 2 Liverpool

There's no getting around the fact that we lost this game and dropped all three points, which is always frustrating for a home match. That being said, I think there were a lot of positives to take out of the actual performance.

Some credit must be given to Mo Salah for doing his usual trickery in the box (I mean this in a good way) to find space and score from a free shot. For a player with such an outsized reputation, he has a knack for disappearing in the play and popping up unmarked. Those kinds of goals just happen when he's involved.

His second goal was definitely of the "gift" variety, though. Eric Dier showed a strange lack of awareness that Alisson was attempting one of his signature passes to Salah and under-hit his attempted header back to Hugo Lloris, allowing Salah to clean up and chip Hugo Lloris for the goal. Unfortunately, this error ended up being the difference between a loss and a draw. Dier did have some good moments going forward later in the match, but he will likely want to forget this game on the whole.

Otherwise, the first-half performance was quite strong. I was unsure how the front two of Ivan Perišić and Harry Kane was going to work out since neither player is particularly pacy, but they are both quite intelligent players when it comes to compensating for their lack of speed. Our midfield was more effective than Liverpool's for the most part, and while Emerson Royal wasn't making much of an impact, Ryan Sessegnon was very industrious on the other side of the wingback pairing. Both wingbacks were subbed out in the 68th minute though, and that's when the team really kicked into second gear with the introduction of Matt Doherty and Dejan Kulusevski.

This was Deki's first appearance for Spurs since September 17 (which in the context of this World-Cup-affected season means a lot of games ago), and my god, he was such a breath of fresh air! Talk about a super sub. Within two minutes of his introduction, he notched an assist for Kane's goal. Something that delighted me about this goal was that every single Spurs player got a touch on the ball in the buildup, with the exception of Perišić. Our possession game seems to improve twofold whenever Kulusevski is on the pitch. Doherty probably deserves some credit for the second-half improvement in the attack, too. The two of them are kind of like the opposite of the Right Side Defense of Death (Emerson Royal and Davinson Sánchez). Sometimes those natural partnerships—or lack thereof—can make a huge difference to the overall flow of play.

I'm honestly surprised we didn't capitalize with an equalizer or even go on to win the game because we continued to pepper Liverpool with shots up until the very last moment of the match—which arguably should have been longer than the minimum four minutes of stoppage. The officiating was pretty questionable overall, with newcomer referee Andrew Madley missing a couple of fouls in the box that could have been penalty shouts, most notably the foul by Trent Alexander-Arnold on Sess in the first half. Let's put it this way:  Antonio Conte getting the only yellow card of the match is not an accurate reflection of the physicality of the match. Besides those missed calls that could have changed the course of the game, we also didn't benefit from much luck with our shots. The crossbar and posts were not helping.

The reason I feel optimistic about the next couple of games despite the loss is that Spurs are finally back to looking like a more attacking side; they just need to clean up the finishing. I also don't think this was another case of a poor first half followed by a more lively second half. We did attack well in the first half, but it's easy to forget that when the scoreline showed us down 0-2 going into the break. You also have to commend the team for putting in such a promising performance with limited resources. Perišić being forced to play in the front two was a great example of those constraints. The role is slightly outside of his comfort zone, but he's such a versatile and adaptable player that he took it in stride. We could only get limited minutes from the likes of Doherty, Kulusevski, and Lucas Moura, and I think Conte made the right starting lineup decision based on who was realistically available—don't forget we were missing Son Heung-min and Richarlison on the attacking front, and Cristian Romero for the defense.

And let's face it:  Liverpool have become a bogey team for us in recent years. I think that's another reason I didn't let myself get too down about this result; it felt somewhat inevitable. As long as we can bounce back with the two remaining matches this week, everything should be fine in the long run, especially with Kulusevski back in the matchday squad to work his magic.

The cup run continues

Our next opponent in the Carabao Cup, Nottingham Forest, actually had a pretty successful run in the other domestic cup last season, the FA Cup. But something tells me Steve Cooper will be less focused on a cup run this season as his team is already in a dire situation with the Premier League relegation battle.

Forest could therefore be doing some heavy rotation on Wednesday (that is, if Cooper has even decided yet on his preferred starting XI after the summer exodus/influx of players), but I would expect Conte to make some changes to his team as well. This would be the perfect game to give Bryan Gil a run out from the start, and Oliver Skipp would also welcome a full 90. Sánchez could come in for Dier at right center back to give Dier a chance to clear his head after the Liverpool game. It might still be too soon to see Kulusevski starting, but he will likely make a significant substitute appearance.

Obviously, I am hoping we can win both this match and the PL game on the weekend (Leeds United at home), but if I had to prioritize one... it would be the PL game. Going out of the League Cup early would not be the end of the world, because we would still have the FA Cup to contend for after the World Cup break and after the added boost of the January transfer window (at least, I sure hope that will be a boost).

COYS

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