Liverpool survived a late scare to earn a 2-1 victory over nine-man Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League.
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Arne Slot admitted that he was ‘hurt’ that Liverpool did not manage to control the closing stages of their victory over Tottenham Hotspur despite a sizeable numerical advandtage.
The Reds survived an almighty scare to cling onto a 2-1 triumph over nine-man Spurs in North London. With Xavi Simons being issued a red card in the first half for serious foul play following a VAR review, Liverpool managed to capitalise.
After coming off at half-time, Alexander Isak fired the Reds in front - although suffering an injury in the process and had to be withdrawn - before Hugo Ekitike doubled the lead in the 66th minute.
Yet Liverpool left the door ajar and their weakness at defending set-pieces was exposed yet again when Richarlison reduced the deficit for Spurs with eight minutes remaining. And despite Tottenham captain Cristian Romero being dismissed for a second yellow card, meaning they had two players fewer, they continued to put Liverpool under siege during nine minutes of stoppage-time.
Reds goalkeeper Alisson Becker made a couple of big saves in the dying embers to ensure that three points were delivered. For the second time this season, Liverpool were caused problems when their opponents had a player dismissed. In August, Newcastle United came from two goals behind before Liverpool netted a stoppage-time winner to avoid what would have been a sobering result.
Liverpool should have been able to easily see out a triumph against Spurs. Yet Slot rued that the Reds played like they were the team down to nine men. “That is definitely true (teams having momentum when they get a goal back),” Slot said at his post-match press conference.
“It is always difficult if I try to explain why it's difficult and then people tell me afterwards, 'You tell too much to your future opponents.' I think it was quite obvious what Newcastle did and it was quite obvious what Tottenham did, but then maybe I shouldn't say it.
“But in the meantime when we had the ball, that was what hurt me the most because from the nine minutes of added time – which ended up with 10 [and] were completely correct this time – I think they had 95 per cent of the ball. So every time when we had the ball, we kicked it away or we threw it away. It was unbelievable that we couldn't keep the ball a bit longer, so then you have to defend for nine minutes, nine-and-a-half minutes.”