Liverpool defender Matip strikes late to win it . . . for Tottenham
LONDON,: Tottenham left it late to beat nine-man Liverpool 2-1 courtesy of an own goal by Joel Matip in the sixth and last minute of stoppage time. Spurs thus took up second place in the Premier League behind a Manchester City team beaten 2-1 by Wolves.
Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool side had gamely battled to try to take home a point after Cody Gakpo cancelled out Son Heung-min’s opener with the visitors having Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota sent off in a feisty clash that was played at an electric pace.
Spurs took the lead in the 36th minute through Son, 10 minutes after Jones was sent off for a reckless tackle on midfielder Yves Bissouma, before Gakpo equalised just before halftime with a shot on the turn in the box.
The Dutch forward was injured in scoring though and did not come out for the second period, with Jota replacing him, but the Portuguese forward was dismissed in the 69th after a second yellow card and Liverpool held out until Matip’s own goal.
Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou said: “We had to cope with a fair few things and show a different side of our game today. Second half I thought we were really good.”
This was Tottenham’s first win over Liverpool since 2017 and only their second in 21 league games against the Reds but they made hard work of it after the visitors went down to nine men.
Spurs are making a habit of winning games in the dying minutes under Postecoglou though, having scored twice deep into stoppage time to beat Sheffield United 2-1 in their last home game, and Saturday’s affair was no less dramatic.
Liverpool were upset at being denied an early ‘goal’ by Luis Diaz by an offside flag. Later the referees’ body, the Professional Game Match Officials Limited, admitted this had been the wrong decision blaming human error, and “should have resulted in the goal being awarded through VAR intervention”.
Klopp said: “That is not offside when you see it, they drew their lines wrong. It is so tough to deal with it. I never saw a game like this with the most unfair circumstances, crazy decisions.”
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