We are all still waiting for Klopp’s revolution to kick in for good but the signs are, once again, promising that his team understands how he wants them to play. There are a lot of examples and the best one, we are all agreed, was Barcelona – a lot of good players from the academy, and then are some of the best players in the world. Both Liverpool and Tottenham will be relatively pleased with their starts to the season as we head into the global break as Spurs have five points on the board and Liverpool have four. That is a good sign.
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Midfielder Mousa Dembele is suspended and captain and No. 1 Hugo Lloris remains out with a hamstring problem, meaning Michel Vorm continues in goal.
Pochettino was the more satisfied of the two managers afterwards and hailed the “fantastic character” shown by his players as they fought to establish a foothold in the match. “In the end we have to accept the result”.
Janssen had replaced Kyle Walker after the Spurs full-back succumbed to illness, prompting a reshuffle that saw Eric Dier move to right-back and Alli drop into central midfield.
During the post-match press conference, Klopp was able to elaborate more on what he liked about Liverpool’s performance today, once again balancing disappointment about the result with satisfaction from a solid performance against a team expected to contend for a top four spot this year. However, Adam Lallana was judged to have played the ball from an offside position. “We decided that Milly can play (there), especially with the style of play we think we should play”, said the German.
“It is true we wanted to play a little bit long but we started to make some mistakes”.
There was no ignoring the celebration from Mauricio Pochettino when the equaliser came, an unrepentantly joyous run down the touchline, a leap and a punch of the air in delight at one point rescued against a Liverpool team that had threatened to overrun his own side at times.
Before then Mane was booked and was lucky to escape a second yellow later in the first half for a foul on Rose.
It fired the Reds ahead just before the break, before Danny Rose earned a point for Spurs in the second half.
“In the first half, Vorm was our man of the match but I thought we played much better in the second”. It’s not easy when you play a team that are ideal on the counter-attack and you need to take risks.
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“It’s hard, a draw is probably a fair result”, he said.
