Liverpool 0
Some historical badness today---blown out of the water from the opening whistle, Liverpool barely put up a fight en route to one of their worst performances of the past year. Just as bad, if not worse, than performances under Roy Hodgson, they were lucky to only concede four. Spurs were dominant in every facet of the match, and if this was a litmus test for what Liverpool can expect in the race for the fourth spot, the outlook is grim.
An actual recap would only be sadistic, so we'll skip the formalities and just say that from top to bottom, this one was all sorts of wrong. From the tactics Liverpool started with to the personnel Kenny Dalglish selected, there was nothing to celebrate. Sure, Mike Jones was a disaster, but no more so than Liverpool. Luis Suarez was at his petulant worst, Martin Skrtel lived out the worst-case scenario at right-back and earned himself an early shower, just as Charlie Adam, who was overrun alongside Lucas in central midfield, did. Andy Carroll looked at odds with his supposed strike partner, Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson couldn't get anything going, Jose Enrique found himself on the wrong end of things for the first time this season, Daniel Agger got hurt, Dirk Kuyt had no role to play, etcetera and so on.
So there's not really much to say other than the only finger-pointing should be at everyone, and Liverpool were much worse than Tottenham on the day. Aside from the fact that the away support was again terrific and there's a midweek match coming, few positives to take from the day. I'd love to say that Liverpool need to just forget about it and move on, but there's painful lessons to be learned from today, and the club's not going to improve if they find blame today in any other source than themselves.
The performance is well worth criticizing, as is the manager, as is his staff, as are the players. That doesn't mean we're not supporters, and that the club can't move on or get better, it just means we watched the match today and saw a club that were not nearly good enough.