In an exquisite display of sadomasochism, the Liverpool defence today dug a hole, dove in headfirst, then invited Spurs to kick it in the arse as hard as they wanted for as long as they desired. Such was the culpability of the defence in the Spurs goals.
Yet, on the other hand, this was not actually surprising. Fans would have known that the defenders, particularly Lovren and Mignolet, always seemed to be on the edge of making some game-changing mistake. In this regard the game was somewhat reminiscent of Groundhog Day, except more searing because the eponymous groundhog crawled out of the hole and took a two-by-four to your skull for a few gleeful minutes before slithering back to its lair and waiting for the next cycle. Lovren's almost amateurish pair of mistakes in the first 15 minutes dealt a body blow to team morale and left Liverpool with a steep climb. Matip's inadvertent "pass" to Alli for the third Spurs goal and Mignolet's misjudgment of a corner that led to the fourth were secondary, but were rather in keeping with Liverpool's Groundhog Day hell.
This prompted the usual groans that Lovren wasn't suitable to Klopp's system. But I feel that that's not really the problem: most of the errors Lovren makes are relatively generic, and not exactly down to the system per se.
Today was a case in point – for the first two goals, he essentially misjudged the flight of the ball badly, and furthermore in the case of the second, he made the poor decision of committing himself when there was no real need. While for the first goal, if he had more pace or game intelligence he might have recovered to hustle strongly for the ball, the point I’m trying to make is that a more consistent defender is much less likely to lose sight of the ball the first place, regardless of whether that defender turns out to be someone who fits into the Klopp system better (i.e. a ball-playing defender who can pass the heck out of defence while tap-dancing backwards as well as anticipate danger while blindfolded, listening to heavy metal music through his earphones in his car a mile away from the pitch). What seems to be the problem is that Lovren frequently fails to get the basics right, either by overthinking things or trying to make an otiose show of aggression and force.
This is related to the point that is frequently made in tandem with criticisms of our defenders, which is that we need a good defensive midfielder to anticipate danger and shield the defence. But, again, when you look at a lot of the goals we’ve conceded, they don’t really come down to inadequate shielding of the defence (many come down to individual errors, particularly at setpieces) or our midfielders not tracking runs as they are supposed to. Fielding an expensive, specialist defensive midfielder would, in my opinion, be rather wasted when we play against packed defences, which frankly is going to happen very frequently under Klopp, while perhaps not exactly adding to our attacking options. In any case, the signing of Keïta seems to be an attempt by Klopp to induct precisely such a midfielder - one who is good at breaking up attacks while being a potent attacking force.
The problem is that the relatively decent run we've been in since the City debacle (with the exception of the League cup defeat) glossed over the usual deficiencies in our defence. While the defence had been criticised during that run for letting in goals that cost us wins, they had actually done a good job in restricting the chances of the opposition and the space that the opponents had been given. However, what was missing was the context: while the statistics (e.g. shots conceded, expected goals against, etc) were decent, the fact is that nearly every one of our opponents during that period took a highly defensive approach in their games against us, even Man Utd, which may have made our defence look better than it actually was. The pair of games where this wasn't the case, both against Leicester, was where we visibly struggled: we lost the League cup game to them, then in the subsequent EPL game days later had much less of our usual control over the game. In particular, the somewhat fortuitous 3-2 league win at Leicester (incidentally, our last win in the league so far) saw a jittery performance from our defence when up against an physical side that pressed more aggressively compared with when we faced ultra-defensive sides.
And so it proved again when facing against Spurs, who, unlike Leicester, took full advantage. There were times when our defence was exposed because we were stretched in trying to attack Spurs (a necessity foisted by the early goals we conceded), but in the final analysis, the goals Spurs scored didn't stem from some situations. They came about as a result of a raft of individual errors, pretty much the same for most of the goals we've conceded this season.
The positive I take away from the game is that the team didn’t seem broken, and kept going strongly to the end, scoreline notwithstanding. We kept grafting to the very end and created good chances against one of the league’s top defensive units.
If anything, hopefully the result forces a defensive rethink by Klopp and forces the players to focus more intently in the coming games. Hopefully Joe Gomez gets a run-out at centerback now, though this could be double-edged sword as well: a young player thrust into such a pivotal position before he’s ready, particularly with the scrutiny and pressure that Liverpool plays under, could flail badly and have his development set back. Then again, it’s really the only way to tell if we have a diamond in the rough.
Nevertheless, putting in Gomez might also be a matter of necessity. It may not be a good idea to field Lovren again so soon when his confidence is obviously low, and with the trust of his teammates possibly lacking as well. That could have a detrimental effect on an already shaky defence. Furthermore, if you’re not going to be dropped for very poor performances, then that undermines Klopp’s supposedly merit-based approach to team selection. The same probably goes for picking Karius over Mignolet, though Klopp really shouldn't chop and change keepers too much. The defence really needs a consistent, reassuring presence behind them, though I’m not 100% sure Karius is that yet. Perhaps Ward should be part of the conversation too.
In any case, Klopp now has to get his charges focused on next weekend's league fixture. We can't afford to fall further behind and need good results to turn around the increasingly negative narrative.
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