Bergvall the Sinner and the Saint for the Spurs
Tottenham 1 Liverpool 0, 8th January 2025
TOTTENHAM 1 (Bergvall 86)
LIVERPOOL 0
The circumstances surrounding last night’s winning goal that inflicted only the second defeat in Arne Slot’s reign of 29 games in charge of Liverpool to date is fairly simple to explain if a little difficult and painful to understand.
Ibrahima Konaté should have been far stronger with his chase and then challenge with ex Red Dominic Solanke for a loose ball entering the Reds penalty area, but he wasn’t.
Solanke’s simple square pass was swept home past a flailing Alisson Becker in the Reds goal by 18 year old Lucas Bergvall, however the teenager should have been sitting on his arse after being sent off mere minutes earlier by referee Stuart Attwell, but he wasn’t.
So let’s backtrack a little: Bergvall was initially booked for a challenge on Luis Díaz when he shouldn’t have been, but he was. So already booked, the youngster then scythed down Kostas Tsimikas in an ugly challenge but with the referee waving for play to continue and an advantage to Liverpool, protocol, as I understand it, is that immediately the advantage is over, the phase of play “dead” or the ball goes out of play, the referee immediately whistles for play to stop in order to yellow card the offender from the previous passage of play, but he didn’t.
Yes the first yellow card for the challenge on Luis Díaz was incorrect and unfair, but he was booked. The challenge on Tsimikas was a bookable offence, a second yellow card and a sending off. Mere minutes later, Bergvall becomes a goal scoring Saint for the Spurs and you could understand the fury and apoplexy emanating not only from Arne Slot on the touchline but that of his backroom staff too. The kid simply shouldn’t have been on the field of play.
But he was.
Backtracking still further, Spurs only had two other goalscoring chances in the entire game with one being a gift from Alisson Becker that Pedro Porro couldn’t capitalise on and the first in the opening minutes of a first half blighted by a horrendous injury to Rodrigo Bentancur (I’m a huge admirer of the Uruguyan and fervently hope he’s ok) and a seemingly less serious injury to Reds central defender Jarell Quansah, with these injuries sandwiching Radu Drăgușin forcing Alisson Becker into a smart, full length one-handed save on 6 minutes. Aside from this, Tottenham never threatened the Reds goal.
On the other side of the football, whilst Curtis Jones, Cody Gakpo and Alexis Mac Allister all shone brightly for the Reds in a first half that simply didn’t get going following the injuries to Bentancur and Quansah, it wasn’t until the triple substitution and introduction of Luis Díaz, Darwin Núñez and Trent Alexander-Arnold on 60 minutes that Liverpool finally had a tangible goal threat. All three would go close to breaking the deadlock with Núñez enjoying arguably a hat-trick of chances, Alexander-Arnold had a thunderbolt of a volley cleared off the line by Drăgușin on 71 minutes before Díaz presented Núñez with the last of his three chances deep into injury time but yet again, Spurs debut making goalkeeper Antonín Kinský beat away his goal bound effort at his near post.
Liverpool have been here before in the League Cup and having to claw back a first leg deficit in the Semi-Final. I had the fortune, or otherwise, to be at Selhurst Park for the 1–2 defeat in 2001 and Bramhall Lane in 2003 when the Reds lost by the same score in the first leg of a Semi-Final before setting the world and score line right, in the second leg at Anfield. So there’s no panic here (although I dare say the internet is ablaze with doom mongers saying the season is over!) and this is only Arne Slot’s second defeat in nearly 30 games. Despite the defeat it’s only half-time in the cup-tie and captain Virgil van Dijk was quoted post-match as “looking forward to the game back at Anfield”.
Let’s see what the Boss thought of it all last evening.
Arne’s Afterword
“It was a good goal, let that be clear. A ball in behind, a cut-back cross, Bergvall scoring, stayed really calm, finished it off, but I don’t think you’re interested in that. I think you’re interested in the moment before…On Sunday, a decision went against them, maybe today a decision went in favour of them, which is, of course, very unlucky for us because I never felt we were going to lose this game. Especially not after the first 15 to 20 minutes because I did feel Spurs started the game better than us. But after that, in my opinion, we had most of the game control, played most of the game in their half, had much more ball possession and then a moment like this, if you go down to 10 for a few seconds against a team that can play good football, like Tottenham can, it’s far from ideal”.
“I don’t think I am known in Holland for the person who always stays calm with referee decisions! Although I do think they have the wrong opinion about me over there when it comes to refereeing decisions! The decision is made, you can’t change it. When he didn’t give the second yellow, nobody thought that it would have had such a big impact 30 seconds later”.
“The good thing for us is that if you ever have to lose a game, it’s better that you lose one when there is still a second leg to be played. Far from ideal starting position for us because they have a really good team, probably some players come back for the second leg. So, far from ideal to lose here but if I ever have to lose, I prefer to lose if there’s still a leg to be played”.
Thanks for reading. I pen my thoughts on every Liverpool game and in recent seasons, with the addition of numerous pieces of retro writing on Reds games of the past, I’ve curated and created the following two self-published books:
"A final word from The Boss" - link to Amazon
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - link to Amazon
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my two recently self-published books. Both are free to read if you subscribe to Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” or reasonably priced in both paperback and hardback. Go on, treat yourself or a loved one and help out an Indie Author! Buy the books if you’re financially able to.
We HAVE to keep the spirit of reading books alive and well.
Thanks.
"still life, with gooseberry" - link to Amazon
"Rasputin and Raspberry Jam" - link to Amazon
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.