Monday Hoddle of Coffee: Recapping the Liverpool Draw, August 29, 2016

(New format for Monday Hoddles today; tell me what you think.)

I’ll have more on the draw against Liverpool later this week, but for now I wanted to make a few brief notes on the game that I can hopefully expand on later:

1. Spurs need Mousa Dembele back in a major way.
2. Michel Vorm continues to prove a surprisingly capable deputy.
3. Toby and Jan kept this game much closer than it should’ve been, especially in the first half.
4. Christian Eriksen’s first half was woeful but the second looked more hopeful.
5. It’s hard to shake the feeling that we should be more versatile than we actually are, but that may be due to the particular players we’re missing (Dembele and, to a lesser degree, Heung-Min Son) and the fact that Janssen is still settling in.

On to the links:

First, here are some pieces recapping Saturday’s match:

Our Recap (ICYMI)

Watch Highlights

Jonathan Liew highlighted the way Liverpool’s press disrupted our possession game:

A comparison with last season’s corresponding fixture - a goalless draw – offers a measure of how successfully Liverpool managed to deny Tottenham time on the ball. Last season Tottenham played just 13 per cent of their passes long and just 9 per cent in the air. This season, the equivalent numbers were 19 per cent and 12 per cent. And that doesn’t even tell the full story: these weren’t pinpoint long balls to the flanks, but hasty clearances or hopeful long balls through the centre. Time and again Tottenham’s defenders were hassled into giving away possession. It may not have been the perfect result for Liverpool, but it was an enormously encouraging performance.

Crace’s player ratings for ESPN—For me, he’s too hard on Eriksen, but his point about us taking a while to grow into games so far this season is a good one.

I give you... Sturridge face:

FourFourTwo commented briefly on one of the things that most stood out to me—the enormous difference in speed between Klopp’s lightning-fast Liverpool and Pochettino’s more muscular Tottenham.

Sky says Liverpool players made 609 sprints in the game, a season-high for the club. I believe it.

Mauricio Pochettino’s post-game comments

Poche is not happy about the upcoming international break.

Jurgen Klopp’s post-game comments

A live-shot of British journos as they work out their latest Harry-Kane-August-Curse #taek:

And now here is the non-Spurs related stuff:

Claudio Bravo’s move to join Pep at City was destined to happen.

Tobin Heath... dayum:

Hull City set for takeover by Chinese consortium.

NBC Sports plans Transfer Deadline Day special for American audiences. (OH GOODY)