Tottenham player ratings as defender lands 2/10 in 'disasterclass' Liverpool defeat

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We rate the players from Tottenham’s Premier League clash with Liverpool.

Tottenham fell a long way short of leaders Liverpool at home on Sunday, conceding three in the first half and never truly recovering. Ange Postecoglou’s injury-hit back-line could not deal with the visitors’ attacking talent.

Liverpool took the lead when a sweet Trent Alexander-Arnold cross found an unmarked Luis Diaz, who headed home. Fraser Forster then reacted slowly to a clearance that ricocheted up in the air, and the 5ft7”Alexis Mac-Allister reacted to head home, emerging from a crowd of defenders..

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James Maddison get Spurs back into the game briefly with a superb finish, but moments later, Dominik Szoboszlai slotted past Forster to re-establish Liverpool’s lead heading into the break. It was a three-goal lead eight minutes after the break, when even two goal-line clearances proved insufficient, with Mo Salah tapping in at the third attempt.

The fifth came just after the hour mark, when Szoboszlai worked the ball brilliantly between them to beat an exposed centre-back pairing. Spurs got one back in the 72nd minute, with Dejan Kulusevski and Dominic Solanke playing a neat one-two ending in the former thumping home a volley. Spurs then got a third with seven minutes remaining when substitute Brennan Johnson headed across the box for Solanke, who finished cleverly.

Liverpool still had time to make is six, though, with Luis Diaz making a darting run to lose Archie Gray and slot home in the 85th minute.

All in all, this was a defensive disasterclass from Spurs, and a questionable game plan given the decimated resources they have at the back. Here we rate the players from the 6-3 Spurs defeat.

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Fraser Forster - 3

Made a good save to deny Salah after 10 minutes. Little he could do for the first, but reacted far too slowly to the second. Little he could do about the third. Forster never seems to know when to come or go, and when he does make a decision, it’s often too late. Spurs should consider signing a new number two in January.

Pedro Porro - 3

Caught playing too high up the pitch on more than one occasion. The most obvious was the fourth goal, which came down his side, which was left very much unguarded.

Radu Dragusin - 2

Dragusin had no idea where Luis Diaz was when he headed in the opener. As a centre-back, you have to look around when a cross comes into the box. For the third Liverpool goal, he stepped up, failed to make the header, then ran back to help out only to overrun it and miss the change to cut off the pass to Szoboszlai. What can be said in defence of Dragusin and Gray’s defence is that they were exposed too often, and Postecoglou should have taken extra care in his planning to prevent that today,

Archie Gray - 3

Tough to criticise such a young player playing out of position against such quality opponents, and more so because Gray needed Dragusin to show some experience and protect him here. He didn’t, and Gray got exposed regularly. The youngster, as you would expect, wasn’t dominant enough against a team like Liverpool. That was shown when he wasn’t tight enough to his man for the fifth goal, something the Reds took advantage of with a superbly placed pass. Luis Diaz then lost him with a sharp run for the sixth goal with five minutes remaining.

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Djed Spence - 4

Perhaps could have done a better job to compete for the second goal, left standing around with the ball in the air. Like Porro, Spence was also caught out too many times. Then again, you have to question a game plan that utilises two high full-backs with the makeshift centre-pairing Spurs had here.

Pape Sarr (Off at 57’) - 5

Struggled to protect the back-line and rarely looked in control of the game.

Yves Bissouma - 5

Much like Sarr, Bissouma was never in control of the game, and he could have done a much better job protecting those behind him, even if it was through just keeping the ball.

Dejan Kulusevski - 6

Did well to set up the first Spurs goal by making a tackle in midfield. Showed plenty of desire but with so much going wrong behind the back-line, it was never going to be enough, even if he did wind up producing a superb volleyed finish for the second Spurs goal.

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James Maddison (Off at 57) - 6

Produced a superb finish to get Spurs back to 2-1. Not much beyond that, but Spurs were stretched going forward and backwards.

Son Heung-min (Off at 81’) - 5

Showed a few moments of quality, but generally struggled to impact the game.

Dominic Solanke - 6

Spurs needed more from Solanke. In a game where the back-line were struggling from the first kick, Solanke needed to be the man to hold the ball up and change the pace of the game. He didn’t. Having said that, he did show plenty of spirit until the end, and he produced both an assist and a goal late in the game, where he enjoyed the best of his performance.

Substitutes

Lucas Bergvall (On at 57’) - 6

Any substitute coming on in this situation is walking into a buzzsaw. Naturally, none of them were going to impact the game significantly, and certainly not the result. Bergavall moved the ball well enough.

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Brennan Johnson (On at 57’) - 6

Johnson provided a well-placed header to set up Solanke for a late goal.

Coming on at 5-1 with nine minutes as a forward is never much fun. Having said that, credit for Werner for showing some desire when many will have been annoyed at the situation.

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