GLEN JOHNSON: In this week’s blog, Glen discusses the issues facing Spurs at this moment in time, and how even though it wouldn’t surprise him if this Liverpool team went the entire season unbeaten, he still doesn’t rate them as highly as The Invincibles.
Spurs struggling for consistency
When Jose Mourinho took over at Tottenham I did think they’d be a bit more consistent than they have been. There was an inevitable upturn in results early on but since then they haven’t really gone anywhere in the grand scheme of things. It’s a bit of a surprise because I really thought they’d kick on under Mourinho and for whatever reason things haven’t quite gone to plan.
His teams have always been renowned as being very tough to beat and that they work their socks off for the manager, however at Spurs that doesn’t seem to be the case. They ship far more goals than Jose would like and that’s something I’m sure he’s working to correct.
I think he’s under quite a lot of pressure, perhaps more than he has been in other jobs for a couple of reasons. Firstly, when he took over they were expected to improve on their league position and that hasn’t really happened and there must also be plenty of pressure from a commercial perspective. The owners have pumped in serious amounts of money into the club with the new stadium and they’ll be expected to recuperate that through qualifying for the Champions League. His whole job will be based around Spurs getting regular football in the Champions League.
They look like they need a number of new faces to push for that top-four and I’d imagine he was promised plenty of money when he took the job. I’m not sure he would have taken it if he wasn’t. He hasn’t got a bad side there and on their day they can beat anyone, but Harry Kane’s injury is a big blow and they’ve shown they aren’t the same side without him. You can’t expect to be a top-four side if you’re so reliant on one player.
Liverpool could easily go unbeaten
If anyone can go unbeaten for an entire season it’s probably this Liverpool side. Every time they face a difficult hurdle they come through it with flying colours and they seem to be able to raise their game for whoever they play. We all thought the Leicester match on Boxing Day would be really tough and they absolutely thumped them, so there’s no reason to suggest they can’t go unbeaten this season.
The Premier League looks done and dusted now. They’ll just be doing all they can to make sure they win it and if they can do that by not losing then great.
Hard to compare Reds to Invincibles
There have been a lot of comparisons between this Liverpool team and the Arsenal Invincibles, but for me that Arsenal side just edge it. I grew up watching them and was absolutely in awe of what they were doing. Let’s not forget that Arsenal went unbeaten and Liverpool still have a long way to go to match that, though I for one certainly wouldn’t bet against them doing it!
The two are hard to compare because Arsenal’s side was full of World Cup winners and the world’s best players, while Liverpool are so good as a team. They obviously have some world-class players like Virgil van Dijk, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah, but they work so well together you don’t really view them like that.
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