Post Match EPL Tottenham (A) 1-2 Sat 20th December 17:30

[peterhague]

Which parts are incorrect?

The general tone is mental.

Everyone knows we're coming off a crisis which very nearly did for a manager who won the title only 6 months earlier. Any sensible person knows we're therefore still in recovery mode. Any sensible person knows that that is going to entail - at best - grinding wins out in the most back to basics way possible, slowly building confidence step by step and loads of missteps.

It's fucking moronic to expect much more right now. If you've already decided that ugly wins aren't good enough what's the fucking point of even watching? You might as well just do something else until the guy gets sacked.

 

[Halmeister ★]

The general tone is mental.

Everyone knows we're coming off a crisis which very nearly did for a manager who won the title only 6 months earlier. Any sensible person knows we're therefore still in recovery mode. Any sensible person knows that that is going to entail - at best - grinding wins out in the most back to basics way possible, slowly building confidence step by step and loads of missteps.

It's fucking moronic to expect much more right now. If you've already decided that ugly wins aren't good enough what's the fucking point of even watching? You might as well just do something else until the guy gets sacked.

We've played shit football under Slot for longer than we've played well. Have you seen our record in 2025? This isn't some 5 week crisis. It's been almost a year and the performances are getting worse, the set up looks awful, the defence is getting increasingly more porous, we don't create chances. I can go on and on.

This is different to when Klopp went on a bad run. Poor performances and results are becoming the norm for Slot. And the longer the players are around him, the worse they're getting.

 

[Farkmaster ★]

We've played shit football under Slot for longer than we've played well. Have you seen our record in 2025? This isn't some 5 week crisis. It's been almost a year and the performances are getting worse, the set up looks awful, the defence is getting increasingly more porous, we don't create chances. I can go on and on.

This is different to when Klopp went on a bad run. Poor performances and results are becoming the norm for Slot. And the longer the players are around him, the worse they're getting.

I don't think he's disputing that.

Like, before this game I saw people talking about how they wanted a statement win, and I get it. People want us to start playing good football. I think he point is, we are absolutely not going to start doing that in the near future. This team got to that broken point that only occasionally happens to a team, where they could not win a game of football. We were very slow to go into more safety first football following that, but we got there. We got some results doing that, without much quality.

The thinking then becomes well, this is kind of fixed now.

No. It's just sort of functional. It's a minimum viable product with all the expectations that go with that.

 

[KopRed]

First I will take not getting tonked by the likes of Forest and PSV by 3 goals or more.

Next I will take reversing that losing streak with a draw or two.

Then I will take some wins at home.

Now, some wins away from home.

We have done all that, isn't that a lil' bit of progression?

Some of you are still in meltdown mode even when we win.

 

[jan]

I don't want us to lose, I know that in the end this is a business where it's the points that count and the boring pick up grind is normal. But can we at least get some excitement? This is still so unwatchable, I hate it and I also inherently hate Dutch people so I'm in the fuck this shit camp

 

[KopRed]

But you do recognise what it will take to get him sacked right? Probably 3-5 wins out of 15, knocked out of all competitions and likely missing out on the UCL.

 

[Farkmaster ★]

I want us to keep winning any way we can.

But don't tell me I have to enjoy it as well, because I don't.

 

[Frogfish ★]

I think a large percentage of the posters on here are truly demented tbh.

It gets worse the closer it gets to Xmas - they can't / daren't talk back to their wives so come on here to vent / let out their frustration !

 

[Frogfish ★]

Hugo cooking, Wirtz showing signs, Frimpong back and we won without Salah.

Happy Fucking Days.

I knew we'd been successful without Mo. when he's away at AFCON but the commentator said we'd NEVER lost a game when he's been away.
So now I've said that the first one is due.

 

[Frogfish ★]

How about these for "positives"...

We barely created anything against ten men.
We were slow and ponderous, as per.
We nearly threw away a 2 goal lead AGAIN.
We got dominated by ten men.
We showed zero composure.
We showed zero game management.
We got dominated by 9 men.
We looked vulnerable at the back, turgid in the middle, non-existant up top.
Our record signing has suffered a potentially serious injury.
Bradley got another injury.
Hardly anybody played well.

The actual result is the only positive.

I'm rarely in accord with Mr. Negativity here (or is that Momo's moniker now?) but the above hits the nail fairly and squarely on it's head.

 

[Frogfish ★]

The issue I have is that we failed to create much against a side with 10 men (despite all the possession for most of that 60 mins of a man advantage) and were then hanging on against 9 men ! Everything was so slow. Until Frimpong came on we lacked width and with 5 midfielders everything was unsurprisingly going through the middle as we tried to unlock the low block with tippy tappy tricks and flicks to walk the ball in.

These are top quality players that are under-performing as a team by degrees of magnitude. Now people can say that we haven't played well but that's not true, we looked class against both Real and Inter, two of the best teams in Europe, so it's in there, but it seems we aren't capable of doing it against the more physical PL teams. That is concerning because I've no doubt about the quality of the players. So that comes down to the manager.

 

[Frogfish ★]

BTW it's worth mentioning :

We have scored 28 goals, just 3 less than Arsenal, however we've conceded 25 to Arsenal's 10. Clearly it's the defence that is the issue not all this hand-wringing over Wirtz and Isak (and even Mo.) not scoring / assisting. All the way across that back line (bar the keepers) we have been below par or worse this season.

Of course if they scored more we could concede more but stil get the result (like City's 41-16) but that hasn't been the key factor in our dropped points.

 

[Dreambeliever]

No, we won’t. As minors in PSV and Galatasaray have showed.

Well have a CB beside VVD that’ll make all the difference.

 

[Dreambeliever]

Im absolutely delighted we won.. Will never want us to lose no matter what game we are playing which is why I was so pissed off with the squad that slot put up for the league cup game against palace...
The only good thing was the result.. The preformance was fucking useless.. We played against 10 men for 60 minutes and 9 for 5 minutes and created nothing bar the 2 goals which both came with a slice of look..
The first came from a bad ball out of defence which spurs lost in midfield which had then the defence out of position and the 2nd came from a wicked deflected cross that looped up and over on to ekitike's head.. Both goals still needed good finishing but not amazingly fashioned chances... After that we did fuck all

Where to start? First off Wirtz almost scored at 0-0.

We had 6 other shots outside of the goals so we created chances.

We tried to control the game against 10 instead of pushing for a 3rd which was sensible. That made even more sense against 9 with 5 left. We had to sub a sub who was subbed on for a sub. Talk about hard to get a rhythm.

The first goal same from a great pressing shape and the second after great work by Frimpong.

Hugo scoring again, Isak scoring and assists for Wirtz and Frimpong all positive.

Sure we weren’t amazing but fuck me the negative bias is nuts.

 

[Dreambeliever]

Bravo for completely ignoring everything I've said.

The result itself was positive. I've explicitly said that.

Everything else was negative.

It's not difficult.

And you’re ignored the fact that to win away after some of the games we’ve had shows the performance couldn’t possibly have been as bad as you make out.

 

[Dreambeliever]

Sorry, @Dreambeliever I'm tired and tetchy. I read it back and saw that you're probably agreeing with me rather than arguing the toss. Apologies.

However, if you're being a mong again, get to fuck!

Ha ha all good. Ya we didn’t play as well as the previous 2 games but fuck me it wasn’t that bad imo. Brilliant result, horrendous injuries. Certainly a step in the right direction for Wirtz and Frimpong imo and Hugo continues to grow in confidence.

 

[Brizzle ★]

I’m sure I’ll make time to join the debate but my main overriding thought is how refreshing it was without our two cut inside wing merchants.

Ekitike’s goal came from Frimpong driving to the byline. So simple. So effective.

Shame about the injury. As that front three looks like it’ll work well together as a 442 diamond.

Spurs were cunts and tried to leave a bit in every tackle.

I hope it’s not ACL for Isak as i don’t think he’ll ever fully recover

 

[tomasjj]

I want us to keep winning any way we can.

But don't tell me I have to enjoy it as well, because I don't.

That first half was beyond boring. It was as we just wanted time to pass.

 

[Stevesquash ★]

Only watched the highlights, so not gonna comment on the whole match, but when they scored, and when we were hanging on, wtf were our midfield doing?

For the goal and 1 other occasion, the ball is pinging around in the box and we have 3 midfielders on the edge of the box patrolling thin air, when the ball is between pen spot and 6 yd line.

This means spurs have 4 players fighting for 2nd 3rd balls and we had VVD and ibou.

Inevitably it eventually drops to one of their 4.

I mean, they all looked dumbstruck but Macca was right there, twitching with fear that we might concede rather than actually getting back 5 metres and preventing it.

Just can't get my head round that collective effort.

 

[Woland ★]

The reason I'm still pissed off with the game is because of the cowardly way we tried to close it out. It cost us at Leeds and it nearly cost us yesterday - against nine fucking men. We should, as against Leeds, have been trying to extend the lead, cos everyone knows we struggle to keep one.

I thought we good going forward. So go forward.

 

[Modo ★]

In Slot's defence, you could see him on the sidelines frantically gesturing to the players to push up.

 

[Halmeister ★]

I don't think he's disputing that.

Like, before this game I saw people talking about how they wanted a statement win, and I get it. People want us to start playing good football. I think he point is, we are absolutely not going to start doing that in the near future. This team got to that broken point that only occasionally happens to a team, where they could not win a game of football. We were very slow to go into more safety first football following that, but we got there. We got some results doing that, without much quality.

The thinking then becomes well, this is kind of fixed now.

No. It's just sort of functional. It's a minimum viable product with all the expectations that go with that.

I'm not asking for a statement win though, or sweeping all before us 5-0 every week. I'm not even asking for swashbuckling, scintillating football.

I just want to see progress. I want to see some sort of indication that we know what we're doing and we're going in the right direction. I want to see some indication that the coach has a solution and we're working towards that. I want to see competence.

When Klopp first joined and we weren't getting the results early on, I was pleased (even when Bogdan was in goal and we were getting tonked by Watford) because you could see a new style of play emerging and a clear idea of what we were hoping to achieve.

This under Slot is getting worse. How many times have we gone 2 goals up this season, only to absolutely flap and bottle it. 5!? And it's still happening. We've become increasingly more toothless in attack. We can't control a game. We can't keep the ball. Not even against 9 men. I have no idea what our style is now, what our pattern of play is. It's not even as if we've shut up shop and traded in attacking play to be more solid. We were still horrendous at the back.

There was nothing good about that performance yesterday besides the result. If they don't go down to 9 men we don't win. And even then we were hanging on.

 

[Irishanfield]

Where to start? First off Wirtz almost scored at 0-0.

We had 6 other shots outside of the goals so we created chances.

We tried to control the game against 10 instead of pushing for a 3rd which was sensible. That made even more sense against 9 with 5 left. We had to sub a sub who was subbed on for a sub. Talk about hard to get a rhythm.

The first goal same from a great pressing shape and the second after great work by Frimpong.

Hugo scoring again, Isak scoring and assists for Wirtz and Frimpong all positive.

Sure we weren’t amazing but fuck me the negative bias is nuts.

Wirtz poor finish.. Didn't almost score. Other chance was vvd header
1st half Stats.
Shots on target - Spurs 1 Liverpool 2
Shots off target - spurs 1 Liverpool 0
Shots blocked - spurs 2 Liverpool 2
XG. Spurs . 49 Liverpool .26

2nd half
Shots on target - Spurs 3 Liverpool 2
Shots off target - spurs 2 Liverpool 1
Shots blocked - spurs 5 Liverpool 1
XG. spurs. .57 Liverpool .4


Yes first goal came from a press but it was a poor ball by the spurs player who was being marked.. If it was at the other end we'd have been blaming the liverpool defender. I still said both were good finishes..
I thing wirtz is great btw. Frimpong's cross took a massive deflection which is why it dropped on ekitike's head at that angle.. Still a good finish..

4 shots in 70 odd minutes against 10 with the last 5 against 9
Yeah that is slot's tactic. Defensively control games.. Don't give up chgsnces and hopefully over the course of a game we will score. It's the same tactic against 11 as it is against 10 as it against 9

Agree with wirtz,ekitike and isak all positives

It's not that we weren't amazing that's the problem.. We were terrible. It was shades of the Newcastle game all over again. In control.. Lead 2-0 and instead of killing the game off slot tries to control and see it out and we concede and then shit the bed. This is why we've thrown away (or nearly have) loads of 2-0 leads this season
It's not negative bias.. Im calling it just as I see it. Our football is negative and boring

 

[mark1975]

We weren't great, Slot set us up not to get beat, which is understandable as we were getting carved open, but if Spurs hadn't played like a shithouse Everton side, we probably would have dropped points.

Spurs were a fucking disgrace, both centre halves were leaving something on every challenge and the ref was lettting too many of them go.

We won, but the long-term damage could really fuck us up.

 

[Halmeister ★]

It's one of football's basic, most fundamental principles when the other side goes down to 10 - stretch the pitch and make it big, move the ball quickly and draw the opposition out. Make use of the extra man. It's basic. Like "don't let the ball bounce in the box"...

However, we were extremely narrow and tried to play intricate little flicks and tricks through the middle all game. SLOWLY. It was bizarre. There was a fairly nondescript passage of play (like all of our passages of play) in the second half where everything was congested in the midfield. Kerkez was out on the byline, even Frimpong was out on the opposite flank. Perfect. Prime for a quick switch out to the wings and spring it on them, I thought. Nope, Jones kept trying to play it narrowly through the lines. We lost the ball, predictably.

This shit is coached. I'm sure Slot knows about basic principles, obviously. But I'm getting the impression it's a classic case of being stubborn, while also being married to his ideas and wanting to show everyone how smart he is.

Sometimes it's basic. Look at Ferguson at United - quick, direct football. Basic principles.

We also let the ball bounce in our box by the way. A lot.

I wouldn't mind if this was a back to basics win to stop the rot. It wasn't. We were extremely lucky. We should have about half of the points we actually have got.

 

[Brizzle ★]

It's one of football's basic, most fundamental principles when the other side goes down to 10 - stretch the pitch and make it big, move the ball quickly and draw the opposition out. Make use of the extra man. It's basic. Like "don't let the ball bounce in the box"...

However, we were extremely narrow and tried to play intricate little flicks and tricks through the middle all game. SLOWLY. It was bizarre. There was a fairly nondescript passage of play (like all of our passages of play) in the second half where everything was congested in the midfield. Kerkez was out on the byline, even Frimpong was out on the opposite flank. Perfect. Prime for a quick switch out to the wings and spring it on them, I thought. Nope, Jones kept trying to play it narrowly through the lines. We lost the ball, predictably.

This shit is coached. I'm sure Slot knows about basic principles, obviously. But I'm getting the impression it's a classic case of being stubborn, while also being married to his ideas and wanting to show everyone how smart he is.

Sometimes it's basic. Look at Ferguson at United - quick, direct football. Basic principles.

We also let the ball bounce in our box by the way. A lot.

I wouldn't mind if this was a back to basics win to stop the rot. It wasn't. We were extremely lucky. We should have about half of the points we actually have got.

Didn’t help that Baldy Fraudy did his trademark move of putting our best midfielder to RB

 

[Holle ★]

It's one of football's basic, most fundamental principles when the other side goes down to 10 - stretch the pitch and make it big, move the ball quickly and draw the opposition out. Make use of the extra man. It's basic. Like "don't let the ball bounce in the box"...

However, we were extremely narrow and tried to play intricate little flicks and tricks through the middle all game. SLOWLY. It was bizarre. There was a fairly nondescript passage of play (like all of our passages of play) in the second half where everything was congested in the midfield. Kerkez was out on the byline, even Frimpong was out on the opposite flank. Perfect. Prime for a quick switch out to the wings and spring it on them, I thought. Nope, Jones kept trying to play it narrowly through the lines. We lost the ball, predictably.

This shit is coached. I'm sure Slot knows about basic principles, obviously. But I'm getting the impression it's a classic case of being stubborn, while also being married to his ideas and wanting to show everyone how smart he is.

Sometimes it's basic. Look at Ferguson at United - quick, direct football. Basic principles.

We also let the ball bounce in our box by the way. A lot.

I wouldn't mind if this was a back to basics win to stop the rot. It wasn't. We were extremely lucky. We should have about half of the points we actually have got.

It's baffling really. I'd really love to know what he's thinking.

 

[SummerOnions ★]

I did think at the end when we had a counter and Wirtz looked like he twinged a hammy, we couldn't really play with anyone up front and closed with Nyoni up front who was so offside he may have been on a different pitch. It's not like we didn't have that plan, we just looked like all our players were about to collapse

 

[Halmeister ★]

I did think at the end when we had a counter and Wirtz looked like he twinged a hammy, we couldn't really play with anyone up front and closed with Nyoni up front who was so offside he may have been on a different pitch. It's not like we didn't have that plan, we just looked like all our players were about to collapse

Yeah they were about to collapse because they were ran ragged by 10/9 men...

That's another issue. We look so much slower, weaker, less physical than almost every other team.

Get Klopp back in with the inhalers.

 

[Hansern]

It's one of football's basic, most fundamental principles when the other side goes down to 10 - stretch the pitch and make it big, move the ball quickly and draw the opposition out. Make use of the extra man. It's basic. Like "don't let the ball bounce in the box"...

However, we were extremely narrow and tried to play intricate little flicks and tricks through the middle all game. SLOWLY. It was bizarre. There was a fairly nondescript passage of play (like all of our passages of play) in the second half where everything was congested in the midfield. Kerkez was out on the byline, even Frimpong was out on the opposite flank. Perfect. Prime for a quick switch out to the wings and spring it on them, I thought. Nope, Jones kept trying to play it narrowly through the lines. We lost the ball, predictably.

This shit is coached. I'm sure Slot knows about basic principles, obviously. But I'm getting the impression it's a classic case of being stubborn, while also being married to his ideas and wanting to show everyone how smart he is.

Sometimes it's basic. Look at Ferguson at United - quick, direct football. Basic principles.

We also let the ball bounce in our box by the way. A lot.

I wouldn't mind if this was a back to basics win to stop the rot. It wasn't. We were extremely lucky. We should have about half of the points we actually have got.

This all sounds very fantasy driven though. Yes, we’re badly coached but Slot has always played with wingers and relied on goals/creativity from out wide. To think he’s now coaching them to play narrow is a bit weird.
For all the shit we throw at Slot he can’t be responsible for Jones losing the ball or when some of them try fancy flicks that see us lose possession.

I thought we were far to cautious yesterday and the game plan was not well drilled, at all.
But Spurs didn’t create anything of note until after the goal by Pigeon head.
We shit our pants at 2-1 and it’s surprising that people didn’t see it coming when this team has lost so many games and are bereft of confidence.
To many young players, no physicality, tactics, home crowd added to the above and its mayhem for a few minutes. Mostly from set pieces. And we don’t defend them like a top team to say the least.

We played pretty well from HT and until they scored. The rest was poor.