Liverpool suffered their 8th home draw this season being held to a scoreless stalemate by Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield. The Reds did just about everything but score, the build up play was excellent but broke down in front of goal with Spurs defending deep, limiting Liverpool to long range efforts. Tottenham were not taking any risks at Anfield, playing a counter-attacking game.
Liverpool were definitely the more attacking side as you’d expect being the home side but couldn’t penetrate the Spurs backline. Jay Spearing had the Reds best first half chance firing narrowly wide in the 33rd minute from 20 yards, Glenn Johnson had two shots stopped by 40 year old keeper, Brad Freidel in the dying moments of the first half but both shots lacked any real venom.
Tottenham’s Gareth Bale received a deserved yellow for diving and pushing Daniel Agger when the Dane confronted him, replays showed that Agger pulled out of the tackle, while Bale threw himself to the ground, great spot from the referee, although I think that deliberately trying get an opposing player penalised should earn a straight red, it’s cheating no matter which way you cut it!
Luis Suarez came on for Dirk Kuyt in the 66th minute to rapturous applause from the Liverpool fans after serving his eight match suspension but the Uruguayan couldn’t inspire Liverpool to a win despite having a couple of goal scoring chances in the final 10 minutes. Andy Carroll had the Reds best opportunity of the second half, but got under the ball and skied his shot from 10 yards in the 74th minute. Gareth Bale found himself one on one with keeper Pepe Reina, the Spaniard did brilliantly to stop the shot with his knees to deny the visitors three points in the 85th minute.
So, the net result of this weekend’s games is that Liverpool remain in seventh place, now 18 points off the top of the table, missing their opportunity to move into sixth ahead of Arsenal, Tottenham remain in third place and remain five points adrift of Manchester United who drew 3 – 3 with Chelsea on Sunday afternoon. Next game for Liverpool is a biggie, so big that I may even get up at 6am (central US time) to watch it live, it’s against the old enemy, Man Utd at Old Trafford!