Tottenham Players Express Disappointment After Loss to Liverpool
A trio of Tottenham players expressed their disappointment following a lackluster performance at Anfield with a chance to silence their critiques who don’t believe that Spurs could turn the corner against the top six clubs on the road.
The words disappointed or disappointment were brought up on a number of occasions as Christian Eriksen, Mousa Dembélé and Toby Alderweireld each took turns to describe what had just happened at Anfield.
Normally, Tottenham have done well against Liverpool. Not enough to win outright — as both teams have drawn three straight — but not as bad as everyone witnessed yesterday in a 2-0 defeat.
Trying to put Saturday’s performance into words is not an easy task.
The trio of players mentioned above were all subdued. They all pointed to various reasons as to why the team didn’t show up but at the end of the day there’s nothing more to say.
“We are very disappointed, first of all with how we played.” Christian Eriksen began.
“We could and should have done much better. There is nothing to say really.”
“Everyone is disappointed, everyone knows what went wrong and everyone knows what we need to do better. Right now, the game is on our minds, we know we can play much better and that’s frustrating.”
Related Story: Five Takeaways: Tottenham Disappoints Against Liverpool
Based on what went on during the first 20 minutes, it appeared as if Tottenham were content to let Liverpool dictate the pace of the game with their high-energy, high-tempo attack.
At first glance, it wasn’t a bad idea. Spurs have shown that they can wear themselves out when they’re the only ones attacking, while their opponents sit back and defend.
Unfortunately for Mauricio Pochettino and company, that didn’t seem to work. At all.
Facing a Liverpool team who had yet to win a Premier League game in 2017, and were sitting as far back as fifth place prior to kick-off, it was clearly obvious they were going to show up for this match.
Mousa Dembélé said it best, that Spurs were “too complacent and lax.” That they lacked aggression. Which no doubt played a major part in falling behind early in the first half.
“They were much more aggressive than us and started much better than us. At the end we can ask as many questions as we want but they were more aggressive and wanted to win more than us.”
More from Match Reports
- From glory, glory to gory, gory, for Mason and Tottenham Hotspur
- Ryan Mason’s Elegant Solution to Tottenham’s Problems
- Tottenham – Defensive needs show over last two games
- Tottenham Hotspur hold off Brighton in much needed 2-1 win
- Mason moves make the difference for lucky Tottenham against Brighton
“I don’t know why. The way we started, maybe we were too lax, maybe we were too complacent – it’s difficult to answer.”
“Everybody could see that they were on top of us and in every battle they were more aggressive than us.”
Toby Alderweireld added that a lack of quality that Tottenham normally bring during games was absent. The Belgian isn’t wrong with his assessment.
Pochettino chose a strong starting lineup minus Jan Vertonghen and Danny Rose on the left side of his back four. Other than missing two key players from their number one ranked defense, Spurs’ starting XI can match up against any team in the Premier League.
You would think that Spurs could handle Liverpool and earn a fourth consecutive draw but it wasn’t meant to be.
“In the first half we didn’t bring the quality to the game that we normally bring, we made some mistakes and because of the mistakes they took advantage and we were 2-0 down which makes it difficult here.” Alderweireld said.
“We tried to change it in the second half and it was better but you need a goal to get back into it. That didn’t happen and then it’s difficult.”
“Normally aggression and desire are our strengths so it’s difficult to see why that happened today and if we don’t bring that level the same as the opponent or even better then it’s difficult.”
Next: Tottenham Lack of Depth Brutally Exposed
Not surprisingly there wasn’t anything positive to say, but Dembélé did offer some interesting advice that every player will do until their next team meeting. And that’s to think about their own game and how they can best improve themselves for next time.
“After the game sometimes you need to be relaxed and let everyone think about their own game. There’s not a lot said afterwards, we leave it for the team meeting.”
A little self-reflection can go a long way and no doubt this is what this team needs in order to bounce back after Chelsea dropped points against Burnley with a 1-1 draw. They’re now 10 points clear of Spurs.