For both sides, quality and calamity made for unhappy bed-fellows. Comically poor out of possession, but with enough lethal firepower to suggest Antonio Conte was right and their recent decline is rooted in a poor attitude more than technical deficiencies. This was also a Spurs who are on their third manager of the season. They can be breathtaking in attack, but occasionally complacent to the point of arrogance when things are going well and deeply vulnerable when the opposition wakes up. Occasionally, there is enough there to suggest they will be back in the hunt to finish second next season, but the lingering flaws explain why Europa League qualification is the best they can realistically hope for in their remaining games. This was the Liverpool who, in going fifth, have assumed their highest league placing of the season. The fact his team had to win the game a second time when they were strolling to victory 70 minutes earlier counterbalanced the ecstasy of victory. Klopp accepted his conduct to the official was not his finest moment.

With good cause, neither manager was especially content once the dust settled on a particularly bonkers game. These sides have far to travel to get back to where they were on that Madrid evening in 2019. It made for a riveting drama, but mainly of the kind caused by so many leading actors fluffing their lines. This game was a banquet of failure and excellence, seven goals aided and abetted by hapless defending, concentration lapses and genuinely world-class finishing. With good reason, the two Champions League finalists of four years ago now find themselves scrapping over the dubious accolade of finishing fifth. The same can be said of the Liverpool and Spurs performances. The entire sequence was worth a 10-out-of-10 for effort, but a deeply flawed three for artistic merit. Still simmering because of the free-kick which led to Tottenham Hotspur recovering from three goals down 99 seconds before Jota’s winner, Klopp manically dashed at the fourth official, John Brooks, to argue justice was done, only to pull up with his face contorted in agony before hobbling back to the technical area.

Jürgen Klopp’s over-exuberant celebration of Diogo Jota’s 94th-minute winning goal was in keeping with an afternoon which just about kept Liverpool’s hopes of Champions League qualification intact hysterical, confusing and more than slightly absurd.Īnd that was just injury time. You know a game has entered the red zone of intensity when the manager pulls a hamstring.

Fifth business by robertson davies