As they continue to chase down Manchester City, Liverpool came up against their hardest remaining league opponent in Tottenham Hotspur, who are themselves battling for the final Champions League spot.
Jürgen Klopp made two changes to the side that fought off a scare from Villarreal to book their place in the Champions League final, replacing Naby Keïta and Diogo Jota with Jordan Henderson and Luis Diaz. Liverpool set up in their usual 4-3-3 formation.
Antonio Conte made just one change to the team that beat Leicester City, as Dejan Kulusevski took Lucas Moura’s spot. Tottenham lined up in a 3-4-3 shape.
From the off, Spurs primarily looked to keep tight and defend. They would sit back in a 5-4-1 shape, staying very disciplined in order to give Liverpool as little space as possible to exploit. They would press occasionally, but it would generally be the wingers stepping out to the Liverpool full-backs rather than the wing-backs, ensuring they kept plenty of cover at the back.
Liverpool’s method to get around this was to attempt to draw out Tottenham’s centre midfielders. Thiago Alcântara would drop in alongside Fabinho, while Trent Alexander-Arnold would sometimes tuck inside into this central space too, encouraging Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur to close them down so as not to give them time on the ball. If Liverpool could draw out one of the pair, then they would switch out to the other side and attempt to slide a pass into Jordan Henderson or Sadio Mané between the lines. Spurs’ midfielders were very disciplined though and even if Liverpool did manage to get the ball into their attackers, Spurs’ defenders were aggressive, giving them no time or space to turn on the ball.
Liverpool were pressing very well, engaging Tottenham high up the pitch. Spurs often tried to play out under this pressure but it was easier said than done and Liverpool’s pressure frequently won them back the ball.
The weakness in this approach was that in pushing their midfielders and full-backs forward to join the press, Liverpool were leaving their centre-backs without a lot of cover against Tottenham’s front three. Under pressure, Spurs would often attempt to go long to Harry Kane dropping off, which was mostly easily dealt with by Liverpool’s centre-backs, however if Kane could flick the ball on then Tottenham could get men running at an exposed Liverpool defence.
Spurs took the lead by exploiting this approach. Playing backwards, they tempted Liverpool into pressing, then Hugo Lloris played an excellent pass over the top of the press to Emerson Royal, who moved the ball on to Kane. England’s captain was given the space to cut inside and slide the ball wide to Ryan Sessegnon, who squared the ball to Son Heung-Min to finish.
After gaining the lead, Spurs became even more defensive, sitting back to defend on the edge of their area. This obviously gave Liverpool little space to use around Spurs’ box, but it allowed them to have the ball high up the pitch. This backfired for Spurs when Diaz cut inside onto his right foot and shot from the edge of the area, deflecting off of Bentancur to send Lloris the wrong way.
A draw wasn’t an ideal result for either team, each needing to catch up with the team ahead of them in the table, but it was a good performance from both teams: Liverpool pressed brilliantly and were calm in their attempts to break Spurs down, but Tottenham simply barely gave them a sniff, keeping disciplined throughout.
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