Spurs 2 Liverpool 1

Well, Liverpool start the league campaign with a loss, and I have a horrible gnawing sensation in my stomach: Welcome back football.  I have a long standing belief that there is no enjoyment in football, and that even the highest highs never quite outweigh the regular lows.  But maybe that’s just me.

I was a little nervy before the match, we’ve not always done as well against Spurs as we should have, and there was the added pressure of the rest of the ‘big four’ winning over the weekend.  With Carragher, Skrtel and Gerrard passed fit, the team looked as you would expect, perhaps apart from the inclusion of Ryan Babel ahead of Benayoun and Riera.

The opening period of the first half was extremely scrappy, largely due to Skrtel and Carragher attempting to undo all the medical staff’s hard work and wiping each other out of the game.  The central defenders had a nasty clash of heads, on 16 minutes, and it took them both a long time (and 12 staples in Carragher’s head) to settle down afterwards.  Skrtel in particular struggled to shake it off, and was forced to take painkillers.

Liverpool’s play remained disjointed for the rest of the half, but Spurs seem to grow in to the game.  On 30 minutes, Robbie Keane missed a golden chance to go ahead, as Reina made an impressive save from close range.  He then made another great save from Keane, just a few minutes later, with Defoe immediately spurning another chance, flashing a header wide.  41 minutes in, Keane blazes another good chance high over the bar.  Despite the Tottenham chances, I still felt fairly comfortable, until, after 44 minutes, Benoit Assou-Ekotto scored with a great strike from the edge of the box.  To be fair, the shot was pretty much unsavable, and there wasn’t a lot that the defence could do.  Liverpool upped the tempo for the few minutes until half time, but it finished 1-0 at the break.  A frustrating half of football, made worse by listening to Glenn Hoddle and Jamie Redknapp saying how much better Tottenham’s squad is than Liverpool’s.  It’s not like Sky Sports’ pundits to jump to conclusions after 45 minutes of football, is it?

The second half started pretty much the same as the first ended, until on 54 minutes, Glen Johnson was brought down in the box by the goalie, following a brilliant attacking run.  Steven Gerrard slotted the resulting penalty away to make it 1-1.

On 58 minutes, done for pace by Defoe, Jamie Carragher brought him down with a clumsy tackle.  From the resulting free kick, Spurs’ new boy Sebastien Bassong scores with a header, 2-1.  I won’t mention the dodgy technicality that meant that Bassong only served one match of a two match ban, and meant that he was available for this game.

67 minutes, and Yossi Benayoun replaced Ryan Babel; Benayoun was one of Liverpool’s star performers towards the end of last season, so it looked to be a positive move.  Babel did little to justify Benitez’s faith in starting him, but I wouldn’t hold it against him, as the whole team were struggling.  Skrtel was finally replaced on 74 minutes, by Premier League debutant Daniel Ayala.  No pressure then for his first game!  Liverpool’s final throw of the dice came on 78 minutes when Andriy Voronin replaced the usually untouchable Dirk Kuyt.

The substitutions made something of a positive impact and Voronin was unlucky not to earn a penalty on 85 minutes.   Sammy Lee got a red card on 89 minutes, for complaining about the ungiven penalty, and it pretty much summed up the frustration of the whole game.  Despite a slight improvement, Liverpool never really got going, and Spurs were definitely the worthy winners.  The match finished 2-1.

I’m not sure that I can take any positives from the game, and I have tried.  About the best I can come up with is that the media will have now already written us off for the title race, and at least that’s a bit less pressure to deal with.  Small comfort.  As much as I struggle to defend today’s performace, I do hope that any media reports on the match highlight the massive impact that the clash of heads had on Liverpool; it totally disprupted the team.

I had written, in my season preview Season’s Greeting, that I was feeling apathetic to the football season.  Sadly, I can report that it is now longer the case; I really wish I didn’t care right now.