Liverpool look team to beat in title race after thrashing Spurs

Tottenham supervisor Ange Postecoglou lifted the well-known line from the film Gladiator following the wild trip of victory over Manchester United when he requested: “Are you not entertained?”

It was Postecoglou’s means of answering questions on his cavalier method, after Spurs threatened to throw away a 3-0 lead in Thursday’s Carabao Cup quarter-final earlier than profitable 4-3.

The issue is that Postecoglou’s thought of leisure works two methods – as he and Spurs discovered to their value as they have been brutally punished by Liverpool in entrance of their very own supporters.

Liverpool definitely discovered Spurs extremely entertaining in a 6-3 win that was nowhere close to an correct reflection of their superiority.

It demonstrated why Arne Slot’s staff are answerable for the title race with a four-point lead over Chelsea at Christmas, with a sport in hand, whereas Spurs languish in eleventh place, eight factors off fourth.

Leisure isn’t an issue with Spurs underneath Postecoglou. However pleasure is laced with a component of sporting torture when they’re uncovered to a staff of Liverpool’s world-class attacking high quality.

There have now been 30 targets in Spurs’ previous 5 video games. Entertaining all proper, however 10 of these have been scored towards Postecoglou’s staff in successive house league defeats by Chelsea and Liverpool. Within the latter case, the one query was how Liverpool solely scored six whereas someway conceding three.

Liverpool’s anticipated targets whole was 4.6 to Spurs’ 1.2. Slot’s staff, measured by Opta statistics, carved out 9 massive possibilities – testimony to their dominance in addition to the defensive vulnerability Postecoglou reveals little signal of addressing with further pragmatism.

It might be unfair on Postecoglou and Spurs to not level out that he’s lacking first-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario in addition to central defenders Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven. These are massive absentees for a staff enjoying in such an open model, particularly Van de Ven, whose tempo is so essential to Postecoglou’s favoured excessive line.

Postecoglou was additionally unable to name on suspended midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur. The influential Uruguayan would have not less than supplied a better diploma of problem in passing via Spurs, one thing which is just too straightforward at current.

Spurs are stretched on numbers, that means Postecoglou fielded an unchanged aspect from that which confronted Manchester United on Thursday.

No such issues for Liverpool, nevertheless, who’ve now received 12 and drawn three of their 16 league video games this season. In addition they have the best objective distinction of plus 21.