And: breathe again. We really must do a few more of these injury‑ravaged, muscle-fatigued, migraine-football nightmares. On a wild night, Liverpool and Tottenham produced a mind-bogglingly tense, tight, pummelling game of football.
There has been some rather prim displeasure expressed in some quarters at the level of high‑end quality dished up of late in the Premier League. Has it conceivably dipped a little? (Probably not.) Is there a sense some of these matches might have been more fevered in front of a full house? In reality, there has been a startling intensity to much of the football played. But nothing quite like this.
There wasn’t just a contrast of styles. It felt at times like a fight for control of how, where and in what kind of shape this game should be played. Spurs sat deep and broke with brutal clarity. Liverpool went all-in, fearless in their all-out team attack and were rewarded at the end with a brilliant winning goal.
These have been barren times for Roberto Firmino, who has defined, as much as anyone, the style of this team. The game had already moved into injury time with the score 1‑1 as Andy Robertson took a corner on the Tottenham right. Eric Dier was blocked off. Firmino jumped, hung and smacked a header off the sweet spot of his forehead back across into the top-right corner.
Liverpool deserved it. They might also have lost it and might equally have won it earlier and by a few more. It was that kind of game, when both teams executed their gameplan and found deep reserves of energy and execution.
It is always foolish to make grand predictions on the back of one tight result and all the more so right now. But there was a clear sense this might prove to be something of a staging point for Liverpool’s title defence.
Mainly there was the exciting spectacle of two Liverpool teenagers playing 90 minutes as Jürgen Klopp drew deeply on his playing resources. Rhys Williams, a Premier League debutant against the Premier League leaders, was playing for Kidderminster in the National League North this time last year. He was mobile, smart and unflustered against a full-bore Harry Kane.
Best of all was Curtis Jones, who has played well at times in his increasingly regular starts, without yet showing the full, sustained extent of his talent.
Spurs had their own moments in between, most noticeably their first-half goal. For 20 minutes they had sat deep, wearing increasingly the bleary, trapped expression of a late-night drinker pummelled by too many refills, head spinning, resigned now to the inevitable.
For a while it seemed Spurs were trapped in a nightmare cycle, pinned back of their own volition, but subject to a constant high-tempo jab of shifting angles, long and short passes, opponents who just don’t stop.
All part of the plan. From nowhere they stretched, slapped themselves around the chops, ran down the other end and scored. The goal was made by a dreamy pass from Giovani Lo Celso, brilliantly conceived and perfectly executed with a nudge from the outside of a foot.
The ball curved though a gap in the red line and into the open green space behind Trent Alexander-Arnold. Son Heung-min was already sprinting on to the line of the ball. Is there a more lethal footballer in that left channel right now? He surged away from the cover, looked up, steadied himself, feinted to go for his favourite, picture-book corner, then smashed the ball into the near one with a cruel precision.
Liverpool had taken the lead seven minutes earlier, Mohamed Salah’s shot taking a loopy deflection. After which the game settled into an almost cartoonish contrast of styles. This was the most extreme example of the José Mourinho way. Not just sit deep and counter. Sit impossibly deep, dig holes in the turf and hide, pull the roof in on the Anderson shelter; then attack with a preternatural precision.
In the middle of which there was a wonderful battle between two style-defining central midfielders in Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and Jones – the latter playing the most intense game of his career, against a team of grizzled old hands and producing a wonderfully measured performance.
There was a moment to sum up the intensity of this duel with 75 minutes gone as Sadio Mané took the ball and nudged it inside to Jones. In an instant Højbjerg was there, back, taking a tumble, craning his neck and finally nudging the ball with his forehead out of Jones’s feet.
It was easy to imagine the confusion in the statisticians’ seats. Did that count as tackle or a header? Højbjerg was immense throughout. He is a warrior in this team, a player of great defensive intelligence who has, in Mourinho, found his spirit animal, his sponsor, his Gandalf.
But opposite him Jones came of age, playing with wonderful control, swift feet and calmness too. Jones had taken 129 touches, completed 94% of his passes, taken three shots at goal, won four headers, made four interceptions and glided about with a rare sense of grace. It had been tempting to wonder exactly what kind of midfielder-in-the-making he is. Here was the answer: a complete one.
Klopp will take so much from this game and not simply the return to the top of the table. The sight of Liverpool’s young players performing at this level in such a thrillingly tight victory will refresh the options within his squad. For Jones, in particular, this felt like a moment of ignition.