Liverpool’s misery on the road continues as Liverpool still remain with one victory in 8 away Premier League games this season.
The reds move down a place to 10th, still stuck on less than 20 points after 15 Premier League games. The reds had another 3 points added to their total of 26 points frittered away, after going ahead in the first half through a Martin Skrtel goal.
Roy made one change from last week’s victory over West Ham, bringing back Lucas Leiva from suspension to replace Christian Poulsen.
N’gog remained up front partnering Torres.
The first half was an end to end affair with chances for both sides. Lennon was a constant thorn in Paul Konchesky’s side – drifting past him with ease and the first decent chance was from his cross which Modric failed to get hold of.
Rodriguez went close for the reds, before Spurs made their first of two first half injury substitutions. Van der Vaart, a revelation at White Hart Lane, replaced by Jermaine Defoe. Later on in the half, Spurs had to bring on Bassong in defence.
Spurs should have been 1-0 up when Reina tipped the ball in to the path of Defoe, a stretch from Carragher’s legs preventing the opening goal.
With 3 minutes remaining in the half a Meireles free kick was sent in to the middle of the box, Skrtel and Ngog went for the header which eventually landed at the feet of the Slovakian who toe-poked the reds in to a first half lead.
Both Rodriguez and Torres could have added a second before the half was up – but Rodriguez took too long, and Torres was tackled well by Bassong.
Liverpool opened the second half brightly, Torres again guilty of wasting a chance to score. Taking a little too long to pull the trigger – allowing the substitute Bassong to make a well executed challenge.
But from then on Spurs dominated the half. They were awarded a debatable free kick, from which N’gog, in the defensive wall, decided to stop the ball with his hands instead of using his head. Defoe stepped up for the penalty and put it wide, although Reina had clearly already chosen correctly where the ball was going.
It seemed after the penalty miss that maybe the reds were about to receive some fortunate luck.
Sadly it wasn’t to be as minutes later Modric tore through the defence, his cross across goal put in to the our own net by Skrtel.
N’gog was replaced after going down injured, and it was Fabio Aurelio who was chosen to replace him.
As time ticked on, Carragher was withdrawn with a dislocated shoulder. As he took his time coming off the pitch he gesticulated furiously at Kyrgiakos, who was not yet ready to replace him. In injury time, Lennon got the winner. After spending the entire game waltzing past Konchesky he did it one more time to score Spurs’ winner.
After the game Roy Hodgson indicated that Liverpool had been minutes away from a point we could have been very proud of.
That statement shows the gulf between his personal ambitions and that of tens of thousands of Liverpool fans.
Liverpool face an away game in Bucharest mid-week before the arrival of former manager Gerard Houllier and Aston Villa at Anfield next Monday. By then, the reds could be a lot further down the table than 10th.