Liverpool U23 3 Spurs U23 2
Tottenham Hotspur lost the home Premier League 2 (Division 1) fixture 6-2 and for the game at Anfield Liverpool selected seven players with first team experience so it was clearly going to be a tough game.
After a poor start to the season Spurs were sitting eight in the table and Liverpool third. Chelsea beat Reading in the morning to send them above Liverpool before the kick-off.
Tottenham were playing in the same style as the first team without the intensity of pressing we see from Eriksen and the others. A few players, Marcus Edwards and Josh Onomah in particular were ambling around for the first 15 minutes or so of the first-half and the performance was a little disjointed. It looked like a team of individuals playing rather than a team.
However Edwards sparked into life in the opposition penalty area when the ball rebounded and he dropped his shoulder, fooling Ben Woodburn to let the ball run across his body onto his favoured left foot. The England Under-19 international pushed the ball to his left and none of the defenders closed him down quickly enough. That gave him the time to fire hone and put us 1-0 up.
We were a bit pedestrian until the ball was played to Edwards and he immediately injected some urgency with a quick pass and Onomah started getting himself into the game with a bit more.
Will Miller scored the second a bit fortuitously after a nice piece of passing from Tracey and Oduwa. At this point we were controlling the game and looked the better side, that didn't last though.
A minute later it was 2-1 as Liverpool right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold went on a run and was upended in the box by Joe Muscat. Harry Wilson coolly dispatched the penalty send Australian keeper Tom Glover the wrong way.
The second half was all Liverpool. When we got into the final third we didn't really know what to do. Passes weren't seen or were simply too slow. We perhaps should have had a penalty for hand ball when the score was at 2-2 and the end result might have been different with that little bit of extra confidence.
Left-back Muscat had a disappointing game needing far too long on the ball when in an attacking area. Josh Onomah looks as if he is bored playing at this level and it was a Spurs old boy, Kevin Stewart, who won the game for Liverpool with a header from a cross from Trent Alexander-Arnold. From 2-0 up it was a disappointing finish.
A good start and a poor finish when we were under pressure.
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