Uruguayan ruffled Tottenham with a mesmersising display of power and energy to earn Jürgen Klopp’s side a vital winAt times in the first half of this thrilling, occasionally messy Premier League fixture, there was a sense of two games taking place simultaneously. In the foreground the feature pretension: a tight, bruising affair, and a meeting of two depleted teams who have spent much of the season trying to bolt their own wheels back on while speeding through the weekly chicanes. A 2-1 victory here was Liverpool’s first away league win this season.Behind this was the other game, the one taking place in the Darwin Núñez universe. This was a looser, chancier affair, a place where the physical rules are a...
Champions League win in Marseille raises questions about Spurs’ style – but there is a chance to build somethingNever really in doubt was it? Except, of course, for all those moments in the opening 45 minutes when it looked wholly and entirely in doubt, as Tottenham produced a mind‑numbingly cautious first half in Marseille but still had enough drive to secure what felt by the end like a pointlessly painful victory.Three points put them top of Group D, in the hat for whatever might happen in that strange, distant place known as the second half of the season. And whatever the manner of victory, this is a significant moment. Continue reading...
In obsessing over the minutiae of refereeing, the game has sacrificed its spontaneity, narrative coherence and sense of funConfusion reigned on Wednesday night. In the white-hot heat of the moment, players, pundits and fans at Tottenham filming reaction videos on phones failed to grasp the intricacies of the offside law. Even the person helming the Guardian’s Champions League clockwatch – me – was very far from sure.Could Harry Kane be adjudged offside if Emerson Royal nodded Ivan Perisic’s excellent deep cross backwards? Could Kane be offside if the ball flicked off a Sporting defender before being tucked into the net, seemingly earning Tottenham a stirring comeback victory and a place in the last 16? Continue reading...
Win or lose the Gunners are enjoying themselves and it showed again as they gave their coach a win to savour over TottenhamIn the 90th minute, Mikel Arteta finally had to start enjoying himself. Hard work, sacrifice, suffering: most of the time, these are the foundation stones of the Arteta method. You work, you fight, you suffer, and if you’re lucky you get to do it all again in five days. Even in the closing stages here, as Arsenal gleefully toyed with Tottenham and the Emirates lapsed into calypso mode, Arteta had lost none of his skittish focus: still urging his team forward, still whirling his arms round and round like a damaged toy.But as Kieran Tierney let fly from...
It was no crisis but such is the Spurs forward’s status in his homeland that eight games without a goal had a nation worriedSon Heung-min’s spectacular 13-minute hat-trick against Leicester on Saturday ended his eight-game barren run, or ‘silence’ as it was called in South Korea. As those Tottenham matches came and went without a goal, the mood back in east Asia grew ever gloomier, becoming darkest just before the Seoul dawn last week when the forward was substituted in the 2-0 defeat against Sporting in Lisbon.However much was said in England about a dry patch that felt longer because it stretched from the start of the season, the conversation was louder in the Land of the Morning Calm. With...