You know a game has entered the red zone of intensity when the manager pulls a hamstring.
Jurgen 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.
And that was just injury time. 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.
The entire sequence was worth a 10-out-of-10 for effort, but a deeply flawed three for artistic merit. The same can be said of the Liverpool and Spurs performances.
With good reason, the two Champions League finalists of four years ago now find themselves scrapping over the dubious accolade of finishing fifth.
This game was a banquet of failure and excellence, seven goals aided and abetted by hapless defending, concentration lapses and genuinely world-class finishing. It made for a riveting drama, but mainly of the kind caused by so many leading actors fluffing their lines. These sides have far to travel to get back to where they were on that Madrid evening in 2019.
With good cause, neither manager was especially content once the dust settled on a particularly bonkers game. Klopp accepted his conduct to the official was not his finest moment.
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.
This was the Liverpool who, in going fifth, have assumed their highest league placing of the season. 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.
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.
This was also a Spurs who are on their third manager of the season. 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. For both sides, quality and calamity made for unhappy bed-fellows.
Initially, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy would have been consoling himself that the club apology he would have to sign off for a second successive week had already been proofread; five goals conceded in 21 minutes at St James’ Park last weekend, three in the first 14 here.
So comprehensively outplayed were Spurs in the opening moments, gallows humour was the only response for those who had made the journey to Merseyside.
“How s— must you be, you’ve only scored three,” the visiting fans chanted after Mohamed Salah struck Liverpool’s third with a penalty.
Curtis Jones and Luis Diaz had already threatened to force Spurs to relive their Newcastle nightmare. There were “oles” from the away stand as their side completed a passing sequence without it ending with conceding another goal. Aside from the ineptitude of the defending – Eric Dier suggesting his surname is misspelt and Cristian Romero redefining recklessness – anyone picking up the Spurs heat map after those first exchanges would have been in danger of catching frostbite.
Harry Kane and Son Heung-min appeared to have accepted a watching brief as Liverpool built comfortably from the back, while what passed as a Spurs midfield did not pass.
As at Newcastle, a few Spurs fans left early. Others began chanting about Levy getting out of their club. Then Spurs reacquainted themselves with a backbone, encouraged by what Klopp regarded as a lowering of the gears on the pitch and a muted, overly content mood around the stadium.
The Spurs departed wished they had stayed and Liverpool started to resemble Spurs, inviting pressure, failing to track runners and turning what had seemed like embarrassment to the visitors into a restoration of their character.
Son was denied by Alisson and then a post – the Var might have ruled it onside despite a late flag – and Kane scored after Ivan Perisic put Virgil van Dijk on his backside.
But for the woodwork, Son and Romero might have completed a comeback earlier in the second half. Son reduced the deficit with 12 minutes left and an equaliser looked likely by the time former Everton striker Richarlison bundled a Son free-kick over the line in the 92nd minute.
Not so Spursy after all? Substitute Lucas Moura had other ideas.
On his last visit to Merseyside, Moura came off the bench after 80 minutes and was sent off at Goodison Park to turn a win into a draw. Being introduced after 90 minutes and turning a draw into a loss will reassert his position as the king of cameos. Jota punished Moura’s error and Klopp simultaneously suffered pleasure and pain.
