LFC v Spurs: It’s Going To Be Tricky

On Wednesday night we expected the Tricky Reds to entertain us. To enthral us. To thrill us all once more. Pre match predictions centred mainly around how many goals Liverpool were going to score. Would is be four, five or even six again? Would it be Suarez or Sturridge leaving Anfield with the match ball? Everyone expected Liverpool to wipe the floor with a team in the relegation zone. In the end, those predictions were all wrong. Liverpool weren’t the Tricky Reds who have dismantled countless teams this season. There were no hat tricks. It wasn’t a feast of football. It was just plain tricky.

The victory over Gus Poyet’s spirited side wasn’t poetry in motion. It was a game of clenched fists, grinded teeth and sheer bloody mindedness. Liverpool got over the line when for twenty minutes or so they looked like they might not. A win is a win.

The performance wasn’t what Liverpool supporters have grown accustomed to this season, but in the end, it yielded the same profit as smashing six at Cardiff four days earlier. As everyone breathed a sigh of relief at the final whistle last night, thoughts immediately turned to Sunday. Sunday and Spurs.

Tim Sherwood has more going for him than most on Merseyside would like to admit right now. Sure, he has less tactical flexibility and knowhow than David Moyes, but his team represent a genuine threat to Liverpool’s title hopes this weekend. It will probably be tricky. Again.

Just like the Reds, Tottenham are rolling in to this one believing. They believe they can catch their freefalling neighbours and claim an unlikely top four finish ahead of ours. They were two nil down to a Southampton team who made them look exactly what they are – ordinary and unsophisticated – for 45 minutes last week. Yet, they too found a way to win.

By the time the game kicks off at Anfield, they have had a weeks rest. A week to prepare. For once, Liverpool will have no such luxury. The boot is on the other foot this time. Brendan Rodgers, not Tim Sherwood, is the manager who has to extract another performance from his side for the third time in little over seven days. It is a task that has often proven too much for Sherwood and his predecessor Andre Villas-Boas at Tottenham this term. Those midweek Europa League matches have hindered the London club.

Whatever side Rodgers puts out this Sunday, the Reds won’t be as fresh as they have been for most of this season. That much was obvious against Sunderland where the strain of playing two high pressure games in four days told. The Reds looked out on their feet in the final ten minutes. They needed that final whistle and no wonder.

Liverpool don’t so much have a squad as a gang right now. A gang of thirteen or fourteen fighting against Chelsea and City’s squads of twenty plus. Strength resides within Anfield but depth does not. Rotation is not an option at the moment. Neither is defeat.

Sunday is unlikely to see the Reds playing with the exuberance and verve that they exhibited when they stormed White Hart Lane back in December. For all their heroics this term, these lads – Suarez, Sturridge, Gerrard et al – are human. Just. They can’t go at it in top gear for ninety minutes three times in a week. Not now. Too much mileage already on the clock. Too much pressure and nervous tension taking their toll. Forget about goal gluts and hat tricks and poetry in motion this weekend. It’s all about finding a way to win again.

Seven wins in a row. Seven more needed.