Tottenham dropped down to second place in the Premier League table as they lost to Liverpool on Wednesday. Jose Mourinho said that his players should have ‘killed’ the game off when they had the chance, as per Sky Sports.
Spurs matched up to the defending champions for the most part, but ultimately conceded a late winner. Heung-min Son got the equaliser after Mohamed Salah had given the hosts the lead. Roberto Firmino popped up with a last-minute header to seal the win and push Liverpool to the top of the table.
The visitors did have some good chances to get a second goal, but they could not convert them. Both Harry Kane and Steven Bergwijn had a clear-cut shot at scoring, but they didn’t convert and Spurs were left to rue their missed chances.
This was acknowledged by the manager who said that even a draw wouldn’t have been satisfactory given how good his team was. When asked about the missed chances, he told Sky Sports:
“I think even a draw would have left us not with the best taste because we had them there to win it.
“It was not just about the big chances; it was the moment of the big chances. The moment was when they were in trouble, in their worst moment, and we had it there to kill it and we missed it.
“Normally, in matches of this level, you pay [for] it. I thought we were going to pay [for] it by just taking a point, but in the end, we did not even take a point so it is very disappointing.”
Despite losing the game Spurs must not get too discouraged by this as they held their own for long periods of the game. They were set up to hurt the hosts on the counterattack and were successful in doing so but could not find the cutting edge on two occasions.
Mourinho would have been happy with the way his team dealt with the threat of players such as Salah, Sadio Mane and so on. This is what makes the last-minute winner that much harder to digest.
Tottenham will next be at home to Leicester City on Sunday and getting the three points would show a proper response to this setback at Anfield.
How they react to this defeat will tell us a lot about what real league title challengers Spurs truly are. They have the talent to go places this season and this defeat could be looked at later as just a minor blip. Leicester will put up a fight, but the North Londoners should have a lot of confidence, given how they performed tonight.