Having fought back from the brink twice in four days, it is fair to say that the fighting spirit that Tottenham so desperately lacked in last week's humiliation has been restored under Ryan Mason. All that has done is serve to highlight the more profound issue that the next Spurs head coach will have to address. This is a team that simply cannot defend.
What Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte -- three head coaches who might list organizing a defense among their greatest qualities -- have bequeathed their Tottenham successors is a team that fails to do the basics whatever the system, that combines individual errors with systemic flaws to forge a defense that can allow opponents to score three on them in 15 minutes once a week.
There was much misfortune in the way in which Tottenham lost this seven-goal thriller, a heavy touch from Lucas Moura teeing up Diogo Jota for the winner 99 seconds after Richarlison's first Premier League goal had seemingly sealed the comeback. Then again, this was a team that had invited Liverpool's array of attacking superstars to go at them all day long. As they chased an unlikely draw, you could forgive the spaces that were left behind them but this is the price of defensive ineptitude.
The bar Tottenham have been setting for themselves of late is low enough that a cobra might consider it a tight squeeze. This is a team who, without the ball, are not even on nodding terms with the basics of their sport. In a back four or a back five, their appreciation of space is atrocious, there is absolutely no trigger that can give them the impetus to press up the field in an attempt to win the ball back. That would be reasonable if they fought with rabidity when the ball approached their final third. Nothing of the sort. There is a laziness to the way in which Cristian Romero in particular defends, always looking for the easy way out, relying on his physicality at the expense of everything else.
How he avoided at least a yellow card for his scything tackle on Cody Gakpo only Paul Tierney knows. It was the quick way out for Romero, who has not been the same player since he won the World Cup with Argentina. He seemed intent on getting this game done by handing Liverpool the penalty to make it three. If that was the case, he did not get what he wanted.
There might be a mitigating factor in the swift turnaround between Sunday's game and Thursday's comeback from two goals down to draw 2-2 against Manchester United. Certainly, Tottenham did not look like a team who had sufficient with Mason to work on adjustments to quell their hosts. How much time was really needed to inform Spurs players of the danger of leaving Trent Alexander-Arnold unmarked on the right corner of the box? No one was guarding the back post -- right wing back Pedro Porro, never once looking over his shoulder, was so far tucked in to be almost on the penalty spot -- and the Premier League's most precise crosser dropped the ball right into the path of Curtis Jones. One swiftly became two as Gakpo and Luis Diaz went untracked on their path into the box, the latter volleying in his first Premier League goal since August. The game should have been over when Salah made it three within 15 minutes.
Ultimately this game told us as many truths about Jurgen Klopp's side as it did Spurs. Three goals up, Liverpool looked nothing like Newcastle had seven days prior. Eddie Howe's side are in the top four because of their relentless pursuit of improvement. This team they appear to have supplanted looked all too happy to sit back on their three-goal lead. The intensity that has defined proceedings at Anfield for so long is gone. Most profoundly of all, the aura has dissipated too. It starts with Virgil van Dijk, a bad cover version of his former self.
Ivan Perisic, 34, cleaved the man once rated as the Premier League's most dominant force apart at the ankles with a burst of quick feet, crossing for Harry Kane to strike. Moments after it was Dejan Kulusevski leaving Van Dijk in a spin, his driven effort clipping the outstretched legs of Alisson. Either side of the halftime interval Heung-min Son hit the post, though he was offside on the previous occasion. Romero's acrobatics diverted a Kane shot against the woodwork.
Liverpool had had their chances to inflict further misery on Tottenham's papier mache backline, the profligacy they displayed at one end for 70 minutes does not blend well with their clumsy defending at the other. Time seemed to be running out when the Argentine lofted an elegant pass over the top for Son to deliver one of those classic Son goals that have been so few and far between this season, rolling the ball beyond Alisson. Ibrahima Konate was fortunate in the extreme that Tierney did not deep his grappling with Richarlison to be worthy of a penalty. The Brazilian got his revenge as time ran out, rising high and flicking a free kick into the ground and over Alisson.
Shirt off, strutting across the field with the swagger of a satiated rooster, Richarlison was asking for the inherent Spursyness of his club to come back and bite him. That it did, Moura's loose touch rolling the ball into the path of Jota, who drilled across Fraser Forster and into the far corner. Klopp earned himself a booking and a hamstring strain for his exuberant celebrations, a sign of a manager who knows his side have gotten away with it.
