Home   >   MOTDs   >   MOTD- Tottenham Hotspur 0-5 Liverpool

MOTD- Tottenham Hotspur 0-5 Liverpool

By on December 15, 2013

It was certainly a night to remember for Liverpool as they pounded Tottenham Hotspur 5-0.

It was certainly a night to remember for Liverpool as they pounded Tottenham Hotspur 5-0.

By the end of the night it was hard to see how Liverpool had failed to even come close to the top four of the Premier League in nearly half a decade.  Traveling to the home of the Premier League’s highest spending club over the summer, a team which hasn’t been in the top five since 2009 wasn’t expected to dominate in every aspect and thrash Tottenham Hotspur 5-0 no matter how good their recent run of form has been.  Liverpool had previously scored thirty-four goals in just fifteen matches and sported two of the top three scorers in the Premier League in Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suarez, but nobody expected them to teach Tottenham Hotspur a serious lesson at White Hart Lane while Suarez surpassed the home side’s fifteen goals this season by bagging another two goals.

Spurs were booed of of the pitch after their dreadful performance, which saw them slip down to seventh in the league, leaving manager Andre Villas-Boas’ job in heavy doubt.  The home side have had plenty of time to meld together and form a team with Christmas in just ten days away yet they played like a side who had never even seen each other before (we apologize to that side for the comparison).

Tottenham didn’t even enjoy a good start, and should have had a penalty awarded against them a quarter of an hour into the match when Etienne Capoue tripped up Suarez inside the Tottenham penalty box.  Yet Suarez paid Tottenham back for the no-call with a goal just two minutes later as the Uruguayan pounced on Michael Dawson’s block of his attempted through ball to Jordan Henderson on the edge of the area.  Suarez evaded Kyle Walker’s tackle before curling a low shot into the bottom corner out from under himself to put his side 1-0 up and get the traveling fans singing instead of shivering in the cold or screaming abuse to the Tottenham player’s.  Liverpool began to pressure Tottenham and nearly took the lead in the twenty-first minute when Raheem Sterling slipped a lovely pass into the run of Suarez down the right side of the Tottenham box.  Suarez saw his low effort blocked by the legs of Tottenham goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, yet Liverpool kept pushing forward and once again came inches away from doubling their lead just six minutes later.  Suarez cut it back to Coutinho after charging down the byline to the left of goal, with the Brazilian snapping a volley into the ground and onto the crossbar.

Liverpool continued to push forward and finally doubled their lead in the thirty-ninth minute when Jordan Henderson latched onto a Liverpool long-ball and slammed it towards goal.  Lloris parried the twenty-yard effort before somehow tipping Suarez’s follow-up shot away, only for Henderson to volley the rebound into the bottom corner.  The pressure was continued as the match moved on to the second half, with Mamadou Sakho heading Sterling’s cross from the right onto the post from literally point-blank range in the forty-ninth minute.

Tottenham’s dreadful night then got that much worse as Paulinho saw straight red for sticking his studs into the chest of Suarez via a high late challenge just after the hour mark.  It was a downward spiral for Tottenham from then on as Liverpool grabbed a third when Suarez was teed up for a cross on the right via a brilliant Henderson back-heel through the legs of Walker.  Suarez curled the cross towards the far post, where a completely unmarked John Flanagan slashed a superb volley in off the crossbar from seven yards.  Suarez then made it four as Luis Alberto threaded an inch-perfect through ball into the former Ajax forward’s run down the left, which Suarez chipped right above the head of the charging Lloris from the edge of the box into the corner of the net.  The three points were already won by the visitors but Sterling put the ice on the cake a minute from time with Suarez (who else?) providing the assist.  Suarez picked out the nineteen-year-old’s run down the right side of the box with a brilliant through-ball, and one-on-one with Lloris, Sterling did not disappoint, tucking it into the bottom corner for Liverpool’s fifth on the night.  From them on it was all a matter of running down the clock, and Tottenham hardly touched the ball during the three minutes of stoppage time before the final whistle blew.
Man of the Match: Jordan Henderson (although Suarez is close behind in second)

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.