Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool: My view

Just a quick blog from me. Phil Thompson, former Liverpool coach believes Liverpool can exploit Tottenham’s frailties which lie mostly in the defence.

“Spurs are very offensive and have a lot of top-class players, but they have defensive frailties….They miss King and Dawson, and their replacements, William Gallas and Younes Kaboul, have struggled at times. Ekotto’s positional play is poor, and Alan Hutton is more of an offensive right-back.”

Yeh you’re right Phil, we miss King and Dawson, two of the finest, most underused centrebacks in England (Dawson isn’t injury-prone), but we don’t MISS them as in ‘if they’re not there, we’ll lose’. If that was the case, Gallas wouldn’t have held the captain’s armband for the second time against Bremen and Kaboul would have been put on the transfer shortlist and linked with a loan move to Birmingham City by now.

I don’t think we’re as weak at the back as we are in attack anymore.
Gallas and Kaboul have put in some fantastic performances at centreback as of late. If there are any weaknesses in the backline, granted it’s most likely to be Hutton on the right. But seeing as Liverpool prefer central attack through Steven Gerrard linking with Fernando Torres, we should be absolutely fine. Especially as Gerrard is out for at least two more weeks with a hamstring injury.

Liverpool could sure use Benayoun right now can’t they I don’t even know why they got rid of him for Joe Cole. Benayoun I feel is miles better than Cole and improved so much under Benitez. Cole is injured too so Torres is all on his own apart from David N’gog and Dirk Kuyt. Kuyt has it all to do.

Phil Thompson went on to say:

“The good news is that we are going there on the back of our biggest win of the season (3-0 against West Ham). The players pulled together and proved they can perform without Steven Gerrard. It was pleasing to see Roy Hodgson play 4-4-2, and I hope he sticks with it this weekend.”

Ok, well done. You beat West Ham at home. Thunderous applause. West Ham are missing Parker and Noble so it wasn’t exactly difficult. Still, thank heaven for small mercies, eh

Liverpool should play 4-5-1 to neutralise Spurs’ deep midfield and supply Torres better as Gerrard isn’t around this weekend.

Our attack has been reinforced slightly as Defoe has come back into the frame, but we still ned another predator in front of goal to deputise for or even partner Defoe to increase the goals scored. Benzema looks a little bit unlikely to join as he has expressed desire to stay in Madrid under Mourinho’s guidance. I mean, who wouldn’t want to feel special under guidance of The Special One…?