Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 1 Tottenham 1 in the 2025-2026 Premier League at Anfield…
EXCUSES and half truths and fortified wine. Liverpool offers piles, tonnes, oodles, oceans of encouragement to Tottenham Hotspur and then get what they deserve.
Home and away Liverpool’s record against the bottom seven is atrocious. And today is just an addition to that pattern. Look:
13 games
6 wins
3 losses
4 draws
17 goals conceded
+2 net goal difference
Only won two of those games by more than one goal. Christ almighty.
Fancy us against Crystal Palace at Anfield on the 25th April?
A massive part of it is being unable to put games to bed, to run away with moments when it is there to be run away with. Liverpool can’t close the door.
They leave it wide open. They are a football team full of cheese trying to catch mice without traps. Pulling the opposition up the pitch in order to? Well? Roll out the red carpet.
Even a dead cat bounces, so they say. In this case, Richarlison shows a little life in this Tottenham team yet. ‘We are staying up’ shout their fans, desperately happy with one goal, one point, and their players showing a tiny spark amongst the gloomy weather that rolled in over the second-half.
The first-half, the blue sky is still over Anfield. You think the manager has made some strong choices here. Rio has earned his start, and Wednesday calls for some players to be rested. Joe Gomez is always a welcome sight.
Jeremie Frimpong’s pace is Liverpool space-making attack, and between him and Andy Robertson, you feel this shape can bring goals.
The goal doesn’t come from the forwards but rather Liverpool’s best player this season. We would have been lost without Dominik Szoboszlai and so it proves today as he whips in a classic from a freekick on the eighteenth minute. Throughout the rest of the game he’s needed in defence and attack, and between him and the captain, they manage to get some organisation in Liverpool’s better periods.
But here is the problem. We never nail this game down. These Tottenham players are not terrible. One of them, Dominic Solanke, we know has skill and experience, alongside the Brazilian who loves to score in our ground. And here comes the encouragement. Even a dejected team can remember how to counter-attack.
Liverpool are awful from 43 to the break and while that might not sound like much, it is actually Igor Tudor’s half-time team talk.
“These will give you one. These will let you in.”
Tel is fast and a pain to deal with. Sarr is likewise tricky. Liverpool have enough chances in front of goal that we should be able to put this Tottenham to bed; instead we wake them up second-half by virtue of not taking the chances.
It is maddening especially after the substitutions. Liverpool are constantly in or about to be in but they cannot do three things well consistently. If they could nail that they would just make it two. But that would involve being ruthless and Liverpool just do not have that gear.
The ball ends up in the back of our net after loads of Liverpool players have been appalling for about five minutes. It is quite the “fuck off Liverpool” moment, in a season building into a tower of them. Fair play to Richarlison. One of the greatest living Evertonians.
Then they are far too anxious and the whole thing is a mess.
Tottenham were encouraged. Had the encouragement piled on them.
Us? Me? Lord, I’m Discouraged. The final whistle goes and the boos pile on and it is hard to disagree. Nobody thinks the players didn’t try but the fact is this is again a mess against a deeply poor side.
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It’s customary to refer to a manager as “under pressure”. I never really like this. They are all under pressure, all the time.
The Liverpool manager (or head coach) finds himself in a precarious position. I’ve long been of the view this is the case – had you asked me before today I would have argued he could well lose his position in the summer and have little argument against it.
Arne Slot has been dealt a bad hand by those above him; dealt with the worst event the football club has had to deal with in 30 years with astonishing dignity. He took a post many in football thought was impossible and showed in 12 months those men were cowards and fools. He delivered Anfield’s greatest ever day before sunset.
His own recent complaints about the standard of the game as a spectacle in England landed with me. I like him a great deal. I will be eternally grateful. He has been the business and is an all time great in my eyes. But his Liverpool now lack conviction, attack poorly and just are shorn of character and brain. They can’t look at a weak point without offering balm, let alone go in for the kill.
When I say he is precarious, his team play like that. They are brittle, short of balance and miss their moments. They are a comic that can’t find a punchline and it is hard not to feel that doesn’t come from the top.
This summer Slot will have 12 months left on his deal and if he isn’t extended, do we imagine that the sense of precariousness disappears? Without a deal, if Liverpool stutter early next season, at Anfield, do we expect that to be shrugged off? Or seen as something greater?
Lacking ruthlessness is something which needs addressing in general. This Liverpool season can be excused for a variety of reasons. But a second like this? Good lord.
Regardless of the manager – and here I mean if he stays – I expect Liverpool to be far better next season because today actually signposts how straightforward a summer it should be for Liverpool. Frimpong and Ngumoha shouldn’t be starting many league or European games in wide areas for The Reds next season but both do damage today. Buy two lads who are ready to go. Add physicality in the middle of the park. And then find continuity elsewhere especially with Ibou Konate.
Arne Slot can succeed being dealt a good hand. But the question is now if he is the man to play it with certainty. It’s amongst the toughest jobs in the footballing world this.
This season doesn’t have to be terminal. Not even for Arne Slot. But Liverpool need to stop torpedoing their now limited ambitions. It undermines all of us.
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Use your eyes, Liverpool have been dire for a year. The League Cup Final debacle should have told us all that something wasn’t right. He has not improved us in any capacity since then, and we have lurched from false dawn to false dawn, but even those have gone now. There is no point in expecting him to suddenly produce effective exciting football next season with a few new and expensive signings. His ideas don’t suit Liverpool FC, he doesn’t have a clue about what we want or expect from our team, he has his football philosophy which is incompatible with ours. Time’s up and unless FSG themselves are duped or blind to the evidence of their own eyes he’s gone in May.