Angeball brings back epic Liverpool, Spurs rivalry in statement win overshadowed by VAR

Ange Postecoglou has brought life back into everyone at Tottenham but his forward-thinking management has now brought life back into a Premier League rivalry that had gone a bit stale. Unfortunately for us, VAR exists and is somehow still a bit sh*t.

Mauricio Pochettino and Jurgen Klopp gave us many tasty encounters between Liverpool and Tottenham, didn’t they? For a while, both clubs were a bit banterous, then they were both quite good, even meeting in the Champions League final at one stage. That night in Madrid was miserable viewing, but both teams were once all-out attack, filled with brilliant players, and fun to watch, especially when they came toe to toe in the Premier League.

Going into Saturday’s match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the Reds and Lilywhites were two of three unbeaten teams in the Premier League, with Manchester City surprisingly losing at Wolves earlier in the day. The other unbeaten team is Arsenal, who battered Bournemouth 4-0 on a perfect day for Mikel Arteta.

We all know how good Spurs are looking under Big Ange. They are bloody brilliant with James Maddison running the show in midfield in front of a revitalised Yves Bissouma and behind Heung-min Son, who is getting back to his best with the Australian at the helm.

The quick turnaround from the gloomy days under Antonio Conte has seen Postecoglou receive a ridiculous amount of praise, even drawing comparisons to some guy named Arsene Wenger, who apparently did some good work at Arsenal in the late 1990s before winning a gold Premier League trophy in 2004.

Even as neutrals, or even rival fans, you can thank the Premier League gods for bringing Big Ange to Our League. His addition is giving us some absolute belters and Tottenham 2 Liverpool 1 was no different. In fact, it meant more given how fun this rivalry was to watch before the days of Conte’s sufferball.

Saturday’s game got off to an expected quick start with both sides on the front foot. This is what Spurs are all about now and Liverpool do not have much of a choice, with attack being their best form of defence these days.

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Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately to a point, VAR decided to have a pretty big say on how the game played out.

Curtis Jones’ yellow card for a high challenge on Bissouma quickly became a red when referee Simon Hooper was advised to look at the incident again on the pitchside monitor and then Luis Diaz had a goal disallowed for an offside that did not look offside.

Conclusion number one (spoiler alert): The red card actually made the game, it did not kill it. Jones’ dismissal almost strengthened Liverpool’s hand (I know, stick with me), as Klopp’s side could look to pounce on the counter, where they are so lethal, while Spurs could attack, attack, and attack a little bit more.

One red card was fun, but a second later on was not. Diogo Jota’s sending off did kill the game. Chaos merchant Darwin Nunez was ready to come on but Diogo Jota decided to get sent off, removing one of those Liverpool threats on the counter with Klopp instead turning to Ibrahima Konate, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Wataru Endo.

At least this red we could blame on the idiotic decision Jota made to hack down Destiny Udogie, not those hidden officials and the man in black.

Yes, VAR will overshadow a great game of football. There will end up being a PGMOL apology for supposed Diaz offside.

But how does this happen? Did the VAR officials simply decide they couldn’t be arsed drawing the lines? Were they filming the new Dominos advert? We need clarity. If he was offside after all of this, I, and many others, will look like plonkers.

VAR is f**king rubbish at times, but so is constantly bemoaning it. Let’s move on. Liverpool fans won’t any time soon, but we have to.

The 5-3-0 formation deployed from nine-man Liverpool took the sting out of what was a bloody good game of football but the Reds’ resistance was broken with one of the final kicks of the game. Joel Matip absolutely twatted the ball into the stanchion to hand Spurs a massive victory.

We thought the system deployed by the eight red outfielders was exposing a potential Achilles heel in Angeball, with the Spurs players struggling to break down a deep block. Like they did against Sheffield United a fortnight ago, though, they found a way. Even if it was an opposition player who got the goal, they managed it.

And while Liverpool fans will be furious with Diaz’s disallowed goal and Jones’ red card, they should be proud of how the players fought a man – and then two men – down.

When these two face off at Anfield later this season, we will get another belter. Hopefully that one will be 11 vs 11.

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