A stunning spell of three goals in the closing seven minutes of the first half set up Spurs for their second win over Liverpool within a fortnight and propelled Harry Redknapp's team, the holders, into the quarter-final stage.
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Les Ferdinand has been recruited by Redknapp to work with his strikers, but it is difficult to see quite how the former Spurs and England striker could improve their morale. Tottenham, under Redknapp, have scored 18 goals in six games and look capable of upsetting anyone. Who would bet against Redknapp, who won the FA Cup with Portsmouth in May, leading a different club to Wembley for the second successive season.
"He'll be great," Redknapp said of Ferdinand, who starts his part-time job on Friday. "They love him here, he's got something to offer."
The match was marred slightly by some petulance from Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel and by the sight of Heurelho Gomes, the Spurs goalkeeper, being carried off on a stretcher after being accidentally kicked in the face by Philipp Degen. However, the injury was to Gomes's teeth and not too serious, so Redknapp was able to joke about his goalkeeper enjoying a Chinese takeaway. "I think he'll be OK for the weekend," Redknapp said.
You have to scrunch your eyes up and really concentrate to remember that a few weeks ago Tottenham were in crisis. Under Redknapp they have taken ten points from a possible 12, thrashed Dynamo Zagreb in the Uefa Cup and now humbled a team hoping to be Premier League champions. As Rafael Benítez pointed out, at least when Spurs beat his side in the league 11 days earlier, Liverpool played well. This time they were, in their manager's words, "really bad" in the first half.
For a man who took over a failing club, Redknapp appears to be blessed with riches and he made seven changes to his line-up. He had yet to give Fraizer Campbell a start and to do so, he rested the in-form Darren Bent.
Campbell, on loan from Manchester United, responded with a performance brimming with energy. After he had set up Pavlyuchenko for the first Tottenham goal, Campbell scored himself, taking advantage of a horrible mix-up between Andrea Dossena and Diego Cavalieri, his goalkeeper. The pair collided as Jamie O'Hara played the ball ahead of Campbell and the finish was a straightforward affair.
Pavlyuchenko celebrated his 38th-minute strike in front of the Liverpool supporters, upsetting Torres, who asked Mike Riley, the referee, to caution the Russia forward. Riley instead booked Torres for ungentlemanly conduct. Then Babel was lucky not be sent off for dissent after committing a foul, but the petulance came before the card had been shown.
Campbell scored the third and again was the beneficiary of poor marking as he met a cross from Aaron Lennon and was left untroubled to head in past Cavalieri. As the Liverpool players trudged off, 3-0 down at half-time, the home fans were prompted to sing; "Can we play you every week?" Liverpool are famous for their comebacks and one seemed plausible when Damien Plessis scored with a header from Babel's corner in the 49th minute. Spurs responded almost immediately when Pavlyuchenko connected with Didier Zokora's cross.
Sami Hyypia took advantage of some indecisive goalkeeping to claw back the deficit again with a header from another Babel corner, but Benítez was not interested in the non-award of a penalty for Liverpool when Gareth Bale brought down Degen. "The key is to play well," he said, not to be given a lifeline.
"I should get out now," Redknapp joked. "I've taken them as far as I can." He praised the crowd for creating a great atmosphere, but added that "league points are the priority for me". It is to his credit that few in the stadium were even thinking about the spectre of relegation.