The last time Tottenham went to Liverpool in the Premier League it was April and there were just seven games left for them to catch the runaway leaders. Spurs played well but could only draw 1-1. Mauricio Pochettino beat the turf in frustration at the end, and the players trudged off bitterly disappointed, knowing that every dropped point took the title away from them.

Today Spurs go back to Anfield. They have twice as much time left in the season, with a whole 14 Premier League games left. But they have a bigger gap to make up. Even a win would just close the gap to six points for a few hours, before Chelsea go to Burnley on Sunday lunch-time. Not that Pochettino wants to think in those terms.

Spurs have to put the table out of their minds if they are to do what they could not always do last year: deliver in this must-win game. If they lose then Chelsea could be 12 points clear by Sunday night and the Premier League engravers might as well get to work on the trophy already.

The problem for Spurs is that this is the type of game they find the hardest. Away ties against other big sides are the games when their lack of experience and elite quality can start to tell. This season they have played four, drawing at the Etihad and the Emirates, losing at Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge. Last season they only won one, the 2-1 at Manchester City in February, and the season before they did not even manage that.

It is one of the last remaining challenges for this Tottenham team but Pochettino denied that they needed to change their mentality to win these games. Some matches, after all, are harder than others. “It’s true that at the top six clubs away we struggle, and this is a good opportunity to change that stat,” he said. “But it is not psychological, come on. We are at a good mental level today. If you analyse the others, they struggle too to win away at the top six. We are not the only team that struggles to win away.”

Spurs certainly are at a good level right now and the biggest difference between them and Liverpool is form. One third of the way through the season, Liverpool were top and six points clear of Spurs. Now, after almost two thirds gone, Spurs are four points up on Liverpool.



What this season suggests is that Pochettino is closer than Jurgen Klopp to cracking the question of how to challenge the big sides, playing physically draining pressing football, on a limited budget, at the very serious end of the Premier League.

Pochettino has pushed back before when asked if his philosophy of football is the same as Klopp’s. He has pointed to how his teams prefer dominating possession, rather than playing on the counter-attack, how they press as a block rather than as individuals. He is very particular about his own style of play and does not want other approaches being lumped in with it.

But before this game Pochettino sounded a sympathetic note to his Anfield counterpart. “Maybe we have similar principles, but we are not the same,” he said. “Liverpool is a very good team, with good players and a very good manager. It is true that the three times we have played in the Premier League it has been a draw and because of that we are thinking it will be a very tough game.”

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While Spurs have struggled in recent years to maintain their physical intensity through the whole season, they have been close to their peak in recent weeks. The Spurs squad think they have never played as well as they did during December and January. Liverpool, in contrast, are in their worst form under Klopp, with one win in their last 10, and that against Plymouth Argyle.

If Spurs can bring the level they showed against Southampton, Watford, Chelsea and West Brom then they will be too good for a Liverpool them that has completely lost its way.

But whatever happens, Pochettino does not want to call it on with Antonio Conte’s pace-setters, not yet. He knows that Conte has been speaking about the 1999-2000 Serie A season, when Conte’s Juventus were well clear with three games left but threw it all away, letting Lazio win the title instead. But Pochettino said Conte is just keeping his players sharp, and is not anxious about Spurs.

“Chelsea aren’t worried,” Pochettino insisted. “It is true that Conte wants to keep the motivation high and keep them pushing and fighting. But I think they are worried about themselves, like every other team.”