Mousa Dembele was Tottenham’s brightest spark against Liverpool but even he underperformed

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Tottenham Hotspur lost to Liverpool in a vital Premier League clash.

Tottenham Hotspur had a match to forget on Saturday as they crashed to a 2-0 defeat away to Liverpool.

Spurs headed into the fixture knowing that a win would all but end Liverpool’s title hopes and also make it that much harder for them to finish in the top four. But the Reds were in no mood to be turned over and they ran out comfortable winners courtesy of a quick-fire brace from Sadio Mane.

The simple fact is the vast majority of Tottenham’s players failed to show up and that will be the biggest disappointment for their manager Mauricio Pochettino.

You can train all week and ensure your game plan is understood to the letter, yet when players simply do not perform on the day there is little a boss can do other than throw his hands up in exasperation.

Arguably the only Tottenham player to perform anywhere near his potential was Mousa Dembele; although if you speak to a Liverpool fan they will no doubt tell you the Belgian was bossed from kick off to the moment he left the field.

In truth it was somewhere in between.

Dembele had a passing accuracy of 81 per cent, while he recovered the ball seven times, won eight duels and managed two interceptions.

However he failed to play a single key pass and won only one successful tackle during his 77 minutes on the field.

Dembele – so often Tottenham’s key man – was above average and better than most of his Spurs teammates, but not good enough to ensure they avoided a costly defeat.