Pundit Gary Neville thinks Tottenham Hotspur’s tactics against Liverpool were “wrong” as they tried to break down the Reds.
Tottenham Hotspur struggled against a depleted Liverpool on Saturday night before finally scoring a last-minute winner.
Spurs took the lead in the first half through Son Heung-min, while Liverpool regretted two key decisions.
Curtis Jones received a straight red card before Luis Diaz’s goal was incorrectly disallowed for offside.
Cody Gakpo equalized for Liverpool before Diogo Jota also received his marching orders for two bookable offences.
A nine-man Liverpool team fought bravely but ultimately lost when Joel Matip scored a very late own goal to give Spurs a 2-1 victory.
Tottenham weren’t exactly at their best; We have seen them play much better under Ange Postecoglou this season.
Playing against ten or even nine men can be difficult at times and Tottenham certainly found that out on Saturday.
It wasn’t easy to beat a struggling Liverpool side for a point and Spurs needed a bit of luck to secure victory.
Speaking on the Gary Neville Podcast, pundit Gary Neville felt the win was “brilliant” for Tottenham, but there were some issues with the performance.
Neville believed Tottenham made a mistake when it came to how they played against nine and ten players and felt Spurs should have stretched the pitch a bit more.
Spurs remained quite narrow in their build-up play and Neville felt this only led to Tottenham running out of ideas on how to beat Liverpool.
“Ideal for Spurs. I think the coach will look at how they play against ten or nine men in the future, because I think there were some mistakes in terms of style of play and positioning on the pitch, way of stretching the game, pace of play.
Passing game, spacing in the passing game – these things are really important. “Certainly it’s difficult because you have a back-to-the-wall defense, but they could have done a lot better, Spurs, and they ran out of ideas, they literally ran out of ideas,” Neville said.
Tottenham fans are loving the first few weeks of the ‘Angeball’ era and there have been moments of euphoria.
Beating Manchester United at home, winning in the last minute against Sheffield United, earning a draw at Arsenal by coming from behind twice and then beating Liverpool.
There were some real highlights and for the most part Spurs played some exceptional football under Postecoglou.
However, the Spurs will still have some problems; Losing the top seven and competing for the title is always unlikely.
Tottenham will suffer some tough defeats and Postecoglou is still learning more about his players after arriving from Celtic last summer.
Postecoglou undoubtedly saw many things Tottenham could have done better against Liverpool; It is up to him to ensure that Spurs can handle a situation like this a little better in the future.
