Tottenham Hotspur must learn to kill games off if they are to win a first league title in 60 years, Jose Mourinho said on Wednesday, after Roberto Firmino’s late winner earned Liverpool a 2-1 win over his side.
The Brazilian’s towering header ended an 11-game unbeaten league run for Mourinho’s men and opened up a three-point lead for the defending champions at the top of the Premier League table.
Liverpool enjoyed 76 percent possession and had 11 shots on target to Tottenham’s two, but Mourinho still believed Spurs would have been deserving winners had they taken their chances early in the second half.
Photo: AFP
Steven Bergwijn hit the post and Harry Kane uncharacteristically headed a huge opportunity over at 1-1.
“We were so close to a win, not so close to a draw,” said Mourinho, who had an exchange of words with Liverpool boss Juergen Klopp at fulltime.
“A draw would be a bad result in relation to the performance, so you can imagine how we feel with the defeat. Of course they had more of the ball, but when we had it, we knew how to hurt them. We have to score — the second, third goal, we have to score it to kill the game,” Mourinho said.
“In matches like these where you don’t have 10 chances, just three or four, you have to score three and kill it, which we didn’t,” he added.
Liverpool are 66 games unbeaten in the league at Anfield and showed why they remain the favorites in a wide-open title race with their ability to consistently win tight games late on.
“Completely deserved,” Klopp said of his side’s victory. “A really good game against a top side, a counterattacking monster.”
“You lose one ball and you end up with an 80 percent possibility in your own box, so you have to really concentrate,” he said.
Before kickoff, the Liverpool support, players and officials paid their respects to former manager Gerard Houllier, who died earlier this week at 73.
Unusually kicking toward 2,000 fans in the Kop in the first half, Liverpool made a storming start as they swarmed over Spurs and could count themselves unfortunate not to have been out of sight by halftime.
Liverpool earned their luck for the opening goal when Mohamed Salah’s shot took a huge deflection off Toby Alderweireld and looped beyond the helpless Hugo Lloris in off the far post.
Curtis Jones should have done better with a big chance to double the home side’s advantage only moments later as Lloris was again well-positioned to make a comfortable save.
The moment Tottenham had been waiting for to launch the counterattack that has thrust them into title contention, beating Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal in the past few weeks, arrived on 33 minutes.
Giovani Lo Celso’s brilliant pass opened up a makeshift Liverpool backline with 19-year-old Rhys Williams partnering midfielder Fabinho in central defense.
Son Heung-min timed his run to perfection to stay onside and coolly slotted past Alisson Becker for his 14th goal of the season.
Mourinho would be bitterly disappointed that his side were eventually undone by a set-piece, as from Andy Robertson’s corner, Firmino rose highest to silence the critics of his goal record with what could be one of the most important goals of the season.
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