LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – Few will forget Harry Kane’s entry into the Premier League “100 Club.”
Redemption in controversial circumstances allowed the England striker to snatch both a late point from the jaws of defeat for Tottenham against Liverpool on Sunday and reaffirm his status as the league’s top scorer after he earlier succumbed to pressure.
The beauty of “sliding doors” moments, as Kane proved, is that they can happen more than once. Two penalties awarded barely 20 minutes apart allowed Mauricio Pochettino’s team to share the spoils in a four-goal thriller which left Anfield incensed at the final whistle. Euphoria reigned just minutes earlier, with Jurgen Klopp sprinting down the touchline after Mohamed Salah appeared to have scored a decisive late winner for the Reds.
“The softest touch in the whole game decides the game. It’s not a penalty, it’s a situation,” Klopp said.
“I heard [Erik] Lamela was even offside in the situation with one leg. [He was] running into Virgil van Dijk, Virgil sees him in the last moment and stops the movement but still touches him, Lamela is already on the way down.
“The ref says ‘keep on going’, the linesman makes the decision – that’s how it is, that’s how everyone saw.”
Silverware threatens to elude Merseyside for a sixth successive year, with Liverpool’s schizophrenic tendencies showing no signs of abating. In recent weeks, they have seen off some of their greatest rivals while simultaneously slumping to defeat against minnows.
Tottenham, meanwhile, cannot receive due credit for a blueprint which ordinarily would bear fruit after entering the fourth season of an undisrupted trajectory. Under Pochettino, they have improved by doing all the right things, from recruitment to tactical ideology, yet are no further along in attempting to unseat the Premier League’s archaic status quo.
Mitigating factors have played their part, not least their ongoing travel sickness problems. Now with just one win in their previous 19 visits to the league’s “Big Six” sides, the Lilywhites’ manager is under no illusions that their form on the road is in dire need of redress.
But both these cubs know that the days when Europe’s great and good are again knocking down their doors are already numbered. Kane’s future appears the more likely to be the subject of duress, with Real Madrid eyeing up a move for him. Christian Eriksen, too, is expected to spark a battle for his signature irrespective of Denmark’s World Cup campaign fortunes this summer.
Kane, however, will continue to dominate the agenda for the both right and wrong reasons. A tamely struck 86th-minute spot kick afforded Loris Karius the easiest of chances to make amends before his landmark moment, nine minutes later, eventually silenced the Kop.
“He’s one of the best strikers. He was calm,” Pochettino insisted post-match.
“He can miss a penalty or a chance but he has the personality.”
“To score 100 Premier League goals [it] is because you have big, big balls.”
The Spurs marksman will not have it all his own way, though. Like Kane, Salah’s own path to the Bernabeu already appears predetermined as he maintained pace for the Premier League’s golden boot with his 20th and 21st league goals of the season elevated him to a position previously only occupied by four other Liverpool players in the modern era.
The Egyptian’s continued scoring streak makes a mockery of supposed experts that insisted he was little more than a glorified Juan Cuadrado. That he had already broken the 20-goal barrier once before with AS Roma, prior to a £36.9 million move, highlights the folly of that claim even before factoring in the qualities of his fellow ex-Chelsea misfit.
Even with Salah enjoying such blistering form, now with six goals in his past five games, Liverpool could not stop themselves being overrun in the second half as Klopp replaced like-for-like, as he hooked a struggling Sadio Mane and Jordan Henderson for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Georginio Wijnaldum.
Pochettino, meanwhile, elected to go for broke by sending on Erik Lamela in place of defender Davinson Sanchez. Although the Argentine’s introduction would pay dividends in the final minute of added time, Victor Wanyama enjoyed the more instantaneous impact as he rifled home a spectacular long-range effort which pulled Spurs level barely a minute after coming on.
It was a goal which carried a sense of inevitability as much as splendour, with Tottenham growing in confidence and ascendancy throughout the second half.
Two points separate these clubs in their battle for a top-four finish, as they continue to fail in matching the lofty standards set by Bill Shankly and Bill Nicholson. Finishing empty-handed constituted a “bad season” in the eyes of Spurs legend Nicholson; thoughts shared by his namesake counterpart at Anfield, who opined “If you are second, you are nothing.”
Neither appear more likely to disprove their respective managerial titans on this evidence.
Richard Buxton is a UK-based writer and special correspondent for Sportsnet. He filed this report from Liverpool’s Anfield stadium.
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