In the wake of Liverpool’s 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday night, I soon saw numerous takes that suggested that the Reds somehow benefitted from poor refereeing. Whilst I generally agree with the idea that John Brooks didn’t have a good game, I’m not entirely sure it will be for the reasons that Spurs fans will have been saying it. It is remarkable to me that they went down to nine men and yet neither of the people sent off was Micky van de Ven, who threw himself recklessly into Alexander Isak with zero control, almost certainly ruling him out for the rest of the season, nor Richarlison, who grabbed one of our players by the throat. Nor did anyone in the officiating team think it right to look at the manner in which Rodrigo Bentancur took out Milos Kerkez towards the end of the game in a tackle that arguably might have been the worst of the lot. Brooks didn’t have anywhere near enough control on the match to be able to reign in Spurs’ anger.
Richarlison is a 🐀
— spider76.bsky.social (@spider76.bsky.social) 21 December 2025 at 11:58
The result of that is that our players left the field feeling battered and bruised and, in the case of Isak, unlikely to play again this side of March. It has been a frustrating start to the Liverpool career of the Swedish striker, having downed tools in the summer in order to force a move away from the Saudi Arabian-owned Newcastle United and therefore being unfit up until recently. Even then, his performances on the pitch weren’t good enough to mean that he was being selected from the start by the manager, having only scored once in all competitions prior to Saturday night. His finish was a well-taken one, but the recklessness of the challenge from van de Ven means he’s now going to be injured for some time. I cannot, for the life of me, work out why it is that the fact that Isak scored means the idiotic challenge that injured him should go unpunished. If he’d have completed a pass and then been wiped out, a red card would’ve followed, so a goal shouldn’t mean it’s fair game.
We Held On
There are no Liverpool supporters who will have been overly impressed with how we played from the moment that Tottenham went down to ten men. This isn’t the first time in recent years that the Reds have struggled to make the extra man advantage count, with both Jürgen Klopp and Arne Slot seemingly failing to work out the best way to tire the opposition out. We were arguably even poorer when they went down to nine, ceding possession repeatedly and allowing them to come at us over and over again as if almost betting to be equalised against. This, then, is not me ignoring the blatant issues with the performance and pretending all is rosy inside Anfield and the AXA Training Centre. Having been critical of the performance, though, I am also going to offer some praise. This has been a dog of a season for the Reds, seemingly determined to prove repeatedly that 2-0 really is the most dangerous scoreline in football, even if the stats don’t bear that out.
Checked in on Spurs v Liverpool, went to Lowe’s for some mulch, came back and Spurs are down to 9 men. And somehow still getting into fights
— G. Willow Wilson (@gwillow.me) 20 December 2025 at 19:33
Any time I have a discussion with anyone about the 2025-2026 season, I will repeatedly bang the drum about the loss of Diogo Jota and the effect that it had on his teammates and everyone associated with Liverpool Football Club. I am not even remotely surprised that the players have struggled to look as if they can cope with any adversity at all, given the horrendous manner in which Diogo and André Silva lost their lives. It is with all of that in mind, therefore, that I’m willing to offer the players a bit more leeway with the results that they’ve suffered. When Spurs managed to get the scoreline back to 2-1, I feared the worst and I don’t imagine that I was alone in that. The fear was that the home side was going to be able to make it 2-2 and really send some supporters off the deep end. Instead, we were able to hold on and see out the game for all three points, which are likely to be crucial in our bid for a top four finish. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t the disaster class some were trying to paint it as either.
This Season Needs Adjusted Expectations
As Liverpool supporters, we’ve grown used to sustained success in recent years. From the moment that Jürgen Klopp arrived at Anfield, the Reds have been battling in numerous competitions and sometimes all of them. It isn’t nice to have to adjust our expectations, especially on the back of Arne Slot having led us to the title with such ease last season and the money spent in the summer. Yet the reality of the matter is that this campaign is not going to be like the other ones that we’ve experienced over the last decade or so. Instead, the players are going to look a bit jumpy when a match doesn’t seem to go their way and the manager is going to make decisions that aren’t as sharp as they were last time out. Anyone with half a brain knows exactly why that is, so we all need to act like grownups and accept that the title isn’t any of our business anymore. That doesn’t mean that the Champions League should be written off or that the FA Cup can’t offer us some small success.
🗣️Arne Slot: “I wouldn’t look for positives at a time like this because that would not make sense at a club like Liverpool, where expectations are always rightly very high, but what I would say is that no-one should underestimate the effort that we are seeing from the players on a daily basis.”
— Anfield Index (@anfieldindex.com) 1 November 2025 at 09:57
Part of the problem behind the idea of accepting that things won’t be what we want them to be comes in the form of the league in general not being as competitive as it has been in recent years. I would be astonished if the title chase goes to the 100 points-plus margin, given the manner in which neither Arsenal nor Manchester City are going anywhere near that pace. That Aston Villa were able to enjoy such a poor start to the season and yet are still part of a title conversation makes that even clearer. We aren’t the all-singing, all-dancing Liverpool of recent years, able to aim for 100 points, but nor are we looking like one that can even break 80 points. That is part of the reason why the win over Spurs is one that I’m happy to celebrate rather than pick over the bones of. Yes, it was frustrating that we didn’t put our foot down when they went down to ten and yes, we were poor when they only had nine players, but given how most of this season has gone, the three points are all that matters.
