Jol’s revolution is in full swing. Jermaine Jenas, Grzegorz Rasiak and Lee Young Pyo made their debuts and Aaron Lennon was given his first start. For now at least, the closing of the transfer window means Jol’s restructuring must be complete. This morning, he can be well pleased.
Liverpool, yet to concede in the Premiership but scorers only once, also had their Premiership debutant in the slender shape of Spurs cast-off Peter Crouch, finally free of suspension and injury to complement Djibril Cissé. According to manager Rafael Benítez, this partnership will ensure a better return than last season’s startling record of 11 defeats on their Premiership travels.
“Today was difficult,” he admitted of what was his side’s 10th fixture of the season. “But we have done a great job and we’re getting more consistent away from home.”
As England coach Sven-Göran Eriksson looked on, both teams flung themselves at each other with an abandon that must surely have given him pause for thought. After 11 minutes, Tottenham were already basking in their superiority when Davids’s foraging allowed the tack-sharp Jermain Defoe to spin around Sami Hyypia and beat José Manuel Reina with ease and the post by centimetres.
On they swept. The effervescent Lee was such a box of tricks on the overlap and so fearless in defence that the home faithful were chanting his name before 30 minutes had passed. The inspirational Davids was a midfield trojan who let no red shirt pass and Rasiak such a distraction that his mere presence caused Reina to miss a tame Defoe cross.
For Liverpool, Crouch and Cissé fleetingly bonded, but, with Xabi Alonso demoted to the bench, Tottenham’s stranglehold in midfield ensured that Cissé was reduced to ineffectual backtracking and Crouch left mostly marooned. At the other end, only heroic blocks from Stephen Warnock and Jamie Carragher kept Spurs at bay.
Five minutes before the break, they came closer still, when a Davids thunderbolt cannoned off Reina. As the Liverool defence stood and watched, Rasiak reacted first, only to watch in despair as his header looped onto the bar.
For the second half, Benítez removed Dietmar Hamann — still groggy after taking an early free kick in the face — and, for 20 minutes as an apocalyptic thunderstorm raged, the tide turned.
First-half spectator Paul Robinson began to earn his keep, saving brilliantly from Cissé’s volley, but, like Tottenham before them, Liverpool could not score.
Like Tottenham once again, they hit the woodwork when Steven Gerrard’s 56th-minute corner was half-cleared to Riise, whose unstoppable 20-yard piledriver hit the underside of the bar.
The let-off served merely to galvanise the home side. Reina spilled Michael Carrick’s drive, only for Defoe to spoon the loose ball over. Indeed, with the lambent Carrick outshining Gerrard alongside Davids and Rasiak — destined to lead Poland’s attack at Old Trafford next month — beating Carragher at will, the goal that would never come looked imminent.
Both Rasiak and Crouch thought they had scored from corners, but both were correctly disallowed. As the seconds ebbed away, both managers sought one last twist: Benitez by withdrawing the exhausted Crouch and switching to 4-5-1; Jol by introducing Robbie Keane, who barely had a kick. The breakthrough remained tantalisingly elusive, but the universal encomium to which the teams departed told its own tale.
