Football Mar 16, 2026

Liverpool performance against Tottenham slammed by Jamie Carragher after draw hits Champions League qualification hopes

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By Admin
Sports Journalist
Liverpool performance against Tottenham slammed by Jamie Carragher after draw hits Champions League qualification hopes

Jamie Carragher has branded Liverpool's 1-1 draw with Tottenham as a "disaster" and castigated the performance of Arne Slot's misfiring side.

Richarlison's late leveller grabbed a vital point for Tottenham in their fight against relegation but dealt a heavy blow to Liverpool's Champions League qualification hopes.

Liverpool are fifth, a point above Chelsea and two behind Aston Villa.

"This is an absolute disaster for Liverpool in terms of their Champions League qualification," said Carragher.

"They have actually made Tottenham look like a decent team."

Ex-Everton striker Richarlison had squandered a number of chances before finding the net in front of the Kop in the 90th minute.

"The defending was absolutely shocking from Liverpool. I've been saying all half that Liverpool have been sleepwalking into this.

"It was an awful performance. No disrespect to Tottenham but they are the worst team in the Premier League now, probably for the last couple of months. They are exactly who you want to play, playing at home, the incentive of your results this weekend and to put in a performance like that. But it's been like that all season.

"And the big question on everybody's lips is: 'Is that down to the manager or the make-up of the squad?' Could a new manager completely revitalise these type of players and bring that energy and sort of intensity back into this team? I'm not sure.

"I think a lot of it goes back to what happened in the summer, the profile of the players that came in and there's just too many players who just want to play when the ball's at their feet. They don't want to dig in and make it difficult. That's why it's so easy to play against this Liverpool team."

Dominik Szoboszlai says Liverpool should be happy to qualify for the Conference League if they continue to play like they did in their draw with Tottenham.

"We have to wake up. If we keep going like this, next season we should be happy if we play Conference League," Szoboszlai told Your Site.

"In the first half, we played very well. We controlled the whole game, they hardly created many chances.

"Second half, I don't know, we just don't do the same things like in the first half. The question is why? We will sit down together. This is the most difficult time. We have to stick together.

"I didn't hear the boos [at full-time] but I can understand because last season we became champions and this season we are not performing in the way that we should be.

"They should stay behind us because last season, when we were champions four games before the end, everybody was happy. Support us now when we're in difficult times."

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot aired his frustration at the familiar way his side dropped points against Spurs.

He was keen to flag some positive aspects to his team's performance but ultimately rued their failure to score more of their chances on Sunday.

"Every time when it happens it feels like it's the biggest blow. When it happened against Wolves, it felt like it was the biggest blow of the season and now it happens again.

"Again, in the last minute, we get an opportunity to score afterwards ourselves, which we didn't do, and then we leave the pitch with a disappointing result.

"The way we concede is not always the same in the last minute, so you can't compare the deflected shot against Wolves with the one we conceded today, or the 30-yard shot against Fulham in the top corner, so it's different in the way we concede, but the same thing is that we constantly - or mainly - if we drop points, concede goals either in extra time or as today in the last minute.

"It's clear that there were a few things positive today.

"If you look at the great goal we scored with Dominik, if you look at the performance of Rio [Ngumoha] for a 17-year-old, if you look at the chances we've created... But we are never able to outscore the amount of chances we have, so you always expect more goals than we are creating.

"But it's also completely clear that there are parts of our game where we definitely need to improve, and that's also why we are in this position, because not everything, actually, a lot of things are not perfect. And as a result of that, we're not able to win or to get as many points as we want to."

To put Slot's comment about chance conversion in context, in the Premier League this season Liverpool have scored 49 times from a total Expected Goals (xG) figure of 50.01.

So Liverpool have performed almost exactly to their xG. Ten teams have a higher underperformance.

In fact, across the last eight Premier League games, Liverpool have scored 16 goals from an xG of just 14.3.

Against Spurs, they had an xG of 1.67 compared to the one goal they did score.

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