Nottingham Forest need not despair. I sat with the Tottenham fans at Anfield and Richarlison's goal should fool no one - it was a joyless pit of frustration and naked fury at how hollow Igor Tudor and
It was a goal which sent Nottingham Forest fans back into that fog of anxiety which has hovered all season: a narrative-shifting late Richarlison strike, 100 miles west at Anfield, prompting conclusions that Tottenham Hotspur had responded to Igor Tudor’s demands for some ‘fight’. That in some sense they had equalised because of him.
From my position in the Spurs end on Sunday afternoon, the reality was very different.
That late equaliser did send the travelling Spurs fans into delirium, crashing down into the rail seat barriers with renditions of ‘We are Tottenham’. But no one should be fooled.
An afternoon in that away end laid bare what the scandalous mismanagement of Tottenham Hotspur has created: a joyless pit of frustration and anger, descending into naked fury at times.
It didn’t start out that way on Sunday afternoon. On the concourse beforehand, there was the pre-match optimism and songs familiar to those who travel with almost any team.
North Londonders, Scandinavians, Americans, some in retro jerseys, some looking the height of fashion, some with children, some on the ales early and leathered by kick-off: all shared in the fragile belief. But the sentiment was skin deep, and the mood soon became oppressive and heavy.
‘Here we go,’ said someone behind me as Florian Wirtz sent Cody Gakpo in on goal in front of the massed ranks of the Kop at the other end of the pitch.
After his spectacular miss – setting the pattern of Liverpool’s afternoon – the strains of ‘Are you Tottenham in disguise?’ briefly sounded.
When a fanbase has become broken, setbacks confirm expectation and no one can see a way ahead. As Liverpool assumed an easy dominance, the noise level dropped. Then came Dominik Szoboszlai’s goal – from a free-kick which the wider Spurs fanbase felt should not have been awarded – and the desolate, stone-cold silence that followed its bleak inevitability.
Perhaps it would have helped if someone in the team’s ranks conveyed a basic impression of wanting to lead. There was, to all intents and purposes, no one demanding anything of anyone else.
From the sidelines, Tudor was doing a lot of gesticulating and shouting but, perhaps unsurprisingly given the way he has publicly castigated his players and humiliated goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky, the Spurs players did not pay him the remotest notice.
Briefly, the strains of ‘Is this a library?’ struck up – because Anfield is also presently struggling for joy. But any thought that the travelling Tottenham band might descend here intent on demonstrating the cussedness and fight that the squad are struggling for was dispelled.
Empty seats suggested that the away allocation was either not sold out, or that those who had forked out had not bothered travelling after the catastrophe in Spain last week, which leaves Tudor’s players facing a 5-2 Champions League deficit as they host Atletico Madrid in the second leg on Wednesday.
A few Spurs fans in the row before me focused on taking images of Mohamed Salah as he warmed up among Liverpool's substitutes. Some among the away contingent asked each other who Tottenham’s substitutes were. Hardly surprising, given the club were relying on such names as James Wilson and James Rowswell and Callum Olusesi.
A more familiar presence among the substitutes, Xavi Simons, was the one staring intently at the play as he went through his own warm-up on the sidelines.
The mood of deep gloom was made evident by the disinclination of some to return to the stand for the start of the second half. The shouts of ‘Tudor out’ had already been issued by then. Spurs have still been asking around about candidates to replace him.
Simons is one of the players you would have imagined Tudor might look to make more use of, given how he drove the team to recover a 2-2 draw against Manchester City last month and was man-of-the-match against Borussia Dortmund and Eintracht Frankfurt in back-to-back Champions League games.
Club captain Cristian Romero has not exactly proved the man for this crisis with his public criticism of the club's hierarchy. Instead, Tudor seems to have viewed keeping both the Dutchman and Randal Kolo Muani on the sidelines as a measure of his own strength.
The team’s resolve seemed stiffened and the travelling supporters were briefly lifted, too, though that optimism was punctured when Salah arrived and looked a treacherous presence as Liverpool attacked in front of us. The away end was blanketed in resignation – another defeat accepted – when Richarlison sent it into raptures.
Tudor opted not to join those players taking acclaim before supporters fuelled with some desperately needed positivity after a comeback which told them that this squad – depleted, with 13 players unavailable – just might have some fight in it.
The StatsPerform match data demonstrated how Simons had contributed – despite, rather than because of, Tudor.
From the time of his introduction to the action, he made more successful passes in the final third and more dribbles than any other player and was second only to Pape Matar Sarr for progressive ball-carries.
As the players drifted away, the chants of ‘We are staying up’ sounded from a few fans. It is a refrain which has belonged down the ages to those who know and accept that other clubs are superior to their own and yet who are damned if they will go down with a whimper.
Tottenham have not known such adversity in the contemporary era, as Forest, West Ham and Leeds United, who also belong to this relegation battle, all have. The question for the defining next few months is whether this fanbase can dispense with their despair and, for the present at least, embrace the fight they find themselves in. Forest will be hoping not.
The collision of the two teams at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday looks monumental.
