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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
Sport
Charlotte Coates

'Hysterical, confusing and more than slightly absurd' - National media react to Liverpool's win over Tottenham

Liverpool moved up to fifth in the Premier League table after beating Tottenham Hotspur in dramatic style at Anfield on Sunday evening.

The Reds surged into a three goal lead after just 15 minutes through Curtis Jones, Luis Diaz and Mohamed Salah before being pegged back by Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and a 93rd minute Richarlison goal.

However, Diogo Jota sent Anfield wild after restoring Liverpool's lead with a 94th minute winner to send them up to the table and into a Europa League spot. Spurs boss Ryan Mason was unhappy Jota wasn't sent off for a high foot on Oliver Skipp.

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Mason spoke in his post-match press conference about how the Portugal international should have seen red before scoring the winner. Below is a look at how the national media and Liverpool ECHO reported on the game.

Dominic King of the Daily Mail wrote: "To make sense of the madness, the first place to visit is the 120 seconds in injury time. There you will find two goals, a yellow card and Jurgen Klopp nursing a pulled hamstring.

"Occasionally the Premier League throws up a game that has more twists and turns than a Hitchcock thriller and poor Ryan Mason, Tottenham's caretaker manager, looked haunted by the outcome after his team threw it all away. They were Saboteurs, if you will.

"This should have been an afternoon when a feather was placed in Mason's cap, as he somehow coaxed and cajoled a response from a group who looked like they were about to be humiliated for the second consecutive Sunday in a row.

"Richarlison, without a goal in his previous 22 Premier League appearances, had emerged from the substitutes' bench to score an injury-time equaliser. This was the first time since March 1997 that Liverpool had allowed a three-goal lead to slither away at home and Klopp was aghast."

Andy Hunter of the Guardian wrote: "Tottenham relived their nightmares at Anfield. There was a repeat of the Newcastle ordeal, ticket refunds due again, redemption in the form of a three-goal comeback, no refunds required, then the final blow of gifting Liverpool a 94th-minute winner with one more calamitous lapse. Torment stalks Spurs on their travels.

"The interim manager Ryan Mason was at least spared the scrutiny that befell Cristian Stellini following the 6-1 rout at St James’ Park last Sunday, although it looked ominous when Jürgen Klopp’s team sauntered into a three-goal lead after 15 minutes. “I’d be lying if I say there wasn’t a bit of fear at that point,” Mason said."

"From agony to ecstasy and back again, Spurs’ terrible record at Anfield continues. Liverpool’s defending also left much to be desired but their quality in attack carried them onwards and upwards into fifth, leapfrogging Spurs in the process. But only just. Mason claimed Jota should not have been on the pitch to score the winner having caught Oliver Skipp in the face with a raised boot. Skipp had earlier escaped sanction for a horrible foul on Luis Díaz. Klopp, incensed that Mohamed Salah had not been awarded a free-kick moments before Spurs’ equaliser, celebrated the winner by sprinting up to the face of the fourth official John Brooks. The manager pulled a hamstring in the process and was rightly booked for his disgraceful behaviour. The pain, however, belonged entirely to the visitors.

Chris Bascombe of the Telegraph wrote: "You know a game has entered the red zone of intensity when the manager pulls a hamstring.

"Jurgen Klopp’s over-exuberant celebration of Diogo Jota’s 94th-minute winning goal was in keeping with an afternoon which just about kept Liverpool’s hopes of Champions League qualification intact; hysterical, confusing and more than slightly absurd.

"And that was just injury time. Still simmering because of the free-kick which led to Tottenham Hotspur recovering from three goals down 99 seconds before Jota’s winner, Klopp manically dashed at the fourth official, John Brooks, to argue justice was done, only to pull up with his face contorted in agony before hobbling back to the technical area.

"The entire sequence was worth a 10-out-of-10 for effort, but a deeply flawed three for artistic merit. The same can be said of the Liverpool and Spurs performances."

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Richard Jolly, of the Independent, wrote:

"It came down to two substitutes. Ryan Mason had conjured a second comeback in four days for Spurs, but went on the offensive by sending on wingers Arnaut Danjuma and Lucas Moura, telling wingers to masquerade as wing-backs. And so the Brazilian found himself in unfamiliar territory when Alisson punted the ball forward. If he was looking to find Cristian Romero, Moura instead only located Diogo Jota. The Liverpool substitute proved the coolest man in a febrile Anfield, slotting a shot under Fraser Forster.

"Among other things, it meant that the Portuguese, after a year without a goal, had five in four matches. After a season of trailing Tottenham, Liverpool had beaten them and leapfrogged them. For the first time this season, Jurgen Klopp’s team have four consecutive victories in all competitions. Yet if they have timed their charge too late to have a realistic chance of reaching the Champions League, their revival remains endangered by defensive frailties.

"They were a shared failing that made for an extraordinary afternoon even before Jota wrestled the limelight from Richarlison. There had seemed an inevitability that the former Everton player, after beginning his Spurs career by going 22 league games without a goal, should belatedly open his account on Merseyside, against Liverpool. There was an almost freakish element to his header, down into the ground and then up over Alisson, from Heung-Min Son’s free kick, but the South Korean had fuelled a fightback."

Paul Gorst of the ECHO wrote:

"In a season of pulls, twangs and knocks, Liverpool can add a new name to their long list of injury victims in Jurgen Klopp himself.

"But the Reds boss will have absolutely no issues with his latest fitness scare after it was picked up celebrating the wildest of finishes to one of the games of the Premier League season.

"Quite how Liverpool needed a 94th-minute winner from Diogo Jota in a game they led 3-0 from 15 minutes in is anyone's guess and one suspects it will be picked apart in great detail when the post-match analysis is undertaken at the AXA Centre before Fulham visit on Wednesday night.

"But for supporters themselves, maybe it's best not to dwell on the how and the why of it all when there is simply the pandemonium to get lost in. It's not been a vintage campaign by any stretch of the most red-tinted imagination but Liverpool have still given their fans plenty to cheer across the course of this strange old season. This was just the latest instalment."

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