'Doctor Tottenham' provide the spark Liverpool needed

Spurs have persistent habit of offering an instant tonic to opponents in poor form - and defeats at the hands of Nottingham Forest and Leeds meant Klopp and Co were exactly that

TONIC: Liverpool's Mohamed Salah, covered by his teammates, celebrates after scoring his side's opening goal during the English Premier League soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, in London, Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022. (AP Photo/David Cliff)

Nine goals in eight games is a scoring streak of superstar proportions yet if truth be told Mo Salah was merely the lucky recipient of yet more Tottenham misfortune.

Whether Antonio Conte deserves a break after seeing his side batter Jurgen Klopp's visitors for most of the second half is a debate in itself in this part of north London. After all, the Italian does keep picking Emerson Royal...

Yet there was no doubting that Liverpool's first away win of the season in a league campaign that sees them still level on points with Fulham and Crystal Palace owed much to defensive resilience as it did to their talismanic forward.

Salah was all smiles afterwards, which was hardly surprising given that his goals ended up settling a wildly fluctuating contest. It was certainly an improvement on the Egyptian's last visit to London, the 3-2 defeat at Arsenal almost exactly a month ago when he was a peripheral figure on the right and was hooked with the scores level.

Since then it has been goals, goals, goals although the hat-trick he plundered at Rangers to start the sequence could hardly have featured more generous defending than the disastrous back header from Eric Dier that presented him with what turned out to be the winner.

At Arsenal Klopp abandoned the 4-3-3 formation that brought Liverpool so many titles to accommodate Darwin Nunez as a lone frontman in a 4-2-3-1 format. In this one the Uruguayan was deployed on the left of a 4-3-3 with Roberto Firmino, a habitual scorer against Spurs, the middle man.

Within seven minutes Nunez had twice come close to scoring and four minutes later had set up Salah for a well-taken opener. Tottenham, forced by absentees into an odd-looking formation, had fallen behind for a sixth successive fixture.

'Doctor Tottenham' is a comedy concept relating to Spurs' persistent habit of offering an instant tonic to opponents in poor form - and defeats at the hands of Nottingham Forest and Leeds meant Klopp and Co were exactly that.

No Heung-min Son, Cristian Romero or even Richarlison created a void that Conte was always going to struggle to fill, although at long last he had Dejan Kulusevski, missing since September after twanging a hamstring on international duty, up his elegant sleeve.

It was a strange sight indeed to see Ivan Perisic as Harry Kane's strike partner ahead of banks of five defensive-minded midfielders and three defenders. The Croat will be 34 before the season is out and 12 years have passed since he banged in 22 goals in a golden season at Club Brugge. Nevertheless those years were indeed rolled back a little by the man Conte signed to be a left-sided defender, although he ended up hitting a post and the bar instead of the net.

The first hint that Liverpool were not going to stroll to victory after all came midway through the first-half when Conte took a leaf out of Klopp's book and ordered his troops to target the suspect right-back. Royal was glad it wasn't him in the spotlight any more as Trent Alexander-Arnold was given a torrid time at the other end.

Liverpool faded as an attacking force with Firmino especially anonymous - until suddenly it was 2-0 when Dier decided to live up to his name.

Conte, arms outstretched with palms down in the universal signal for calm, got absolutely none of that as Lloris, his captain as well as his goalkeeper, immediately smacked a panic of a clearance into Firmino and was fortunate to be able to pouch the loose ball before anything untoward happened.

Liverpool's task was clear for the second half - let Spurs come at them and stay solid enough to be able to pick them off on the counter attack - and for a while that was exactly what happened.

Lloris denied Salah the matchball with a smart stop but the home fans were roused again when Kane almost caught Alisson in possession as the goalkeeper dithered. Tottenham began to hint they might actually come back from adversity once again, having done just that at Bournemouth and Marseille in dramatic fashion.

Yet Spurs seem destined to be forever Spursy and the mood was dampened by a period of truly awful play. Royal - who else? - set the tone with a hopeless cross under no pressure at all, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg caught the bug immediately by booting the ball to no white shirt whatsoever, Rodrigo Bentancur saw a cross sail away for a throw and even a Kane header turned out to be a clearance.

It was a horrible passage of play - the sort that gets managers sacked in fact - but Conte had a solution and its name was Kulusevski.

The Swede came on for the last 22 minutes in a double switch involving Matt Doherty and inevitably it was Royal and Sessegnon who made way, with Perisic switching to his normal position on the left.

Huge cheers greeted the Swede, who straight away announced his intention to reciprocate. A burst into the box almost panicked Virgil van Dijk into conceding a penalty but seconds later it was his pass that set up Kane to make it 2-1.

After that it was just a question of whether Tottenham could equalise. They could not but it was not until right before the final whistle that the away end felt confident enough to pipe up with You'll Never Walk Alone. Which surely says something?