Paid subscribers will be able to download the complete match-event spreadsheet in XLSX format at the end of this article. It contains the event-level actions behind the analysis and can be used for independent tactical or data work.
Data disclaimer: No match images or video footage were used in this analysis. The conclusions are based exclusively on event-level match data and derived tactical information such as passing structure, xT progression, player centralities, defensive influence and functional movement patterns; the movement analysis therefore describes event-derived positional tendencies, not tracking-data running paths.
Liverpool beat Tottenham 3–1 in the 2026/27 League Cup, but the most interesting feature of the match was not simply the difference on the scoreboard. Tottenham built the denser passing structure and circulated the ball through more connections, yet Liverpool produced the cleaner progression, the stronger final-third value and the more influential defensive network.
Liverpool 3–1 Tottenham analysis inside the Football Hacking Web App
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Liverpool’s first advantage came from structure, not possession volume
The opening phase already showed an important contrast. Liverpool’s central structure was built around Trey Nyoni, whose median passing position sat in the central corridor, while Jeremie Frimpong provided a much higher and wider reference on the right corridor; instead of filling the same vertical line, they separated the functions of central circulation and width.
That gave Liverpool an interesting asymmetry. Nyoni could participate in circulation without being permanently fixed next to the centre-backs, while Frimpong’s high starting point stretched Tottenham horizontally and created a direct route into advanced areas whenever the ball escaped the first pressure.
Tottenham’s early structure was more possession-oriented. Marcos Senesi operated as a deep left-sided distributor, while Mohammed Kudus occupied a much more advanced position in the right corridor, creating a clear long diagonal between the deepest circulation point and one of the highest attacking references.
That structure helped Tottenham keep connections alive, but Liverpool found the first decisive action. Alexis Mac Allister scored in the 21st minute from a central position inside the box, giving Liverpool a 1–0 lead before the first half had reached its midpoint.
22.5’–HT: Mac Allister moves higher and Liverpool change the midfield geometry
After the opening goal, Liverpool’s event-derived positioning changed. Alexis Mac Allister moved from a deeper left-central passing position into a higher left half-space, while Trey Nyoni appeared noticeably deeper and more right-sided in the circulation structure.
That exchange matters because it changed who was responsible for receiving behind Tottenham’s first pressure and who was responsible for connecting the attack. Mac Allister became more available ahead of the ball, while Nyoni increasingly supported the structure underneath him rather than duplicating the Argentine’s zone.
Tottenham also adjusted their occupation. Rodrigo Bentancur became much more central and much more involved in circulation, while Mohammed Kudus remained the higher right-sided reference, giving Spurs a stable central-to-wide route without forcing Kudus to drop continuously toward the ball.
Yet there was already a warning in Tottenham’s possession. Their circulation could move around Liverpool, but it was not consistently moving Liverpool itself; the eventual whole-match data would show that Tottenham built a connected network without converting that connectivity into enough positive passing threat.
The centrality map explains who actually controlled Liverpool’s circulation
Liverpool’s passing network had one extremely important structural hub: Ronald Araujo. He recorded the team’s highest Load Centrality at 0.362 and the highest PageRank at 0.135, which means he was simultaneously the player through whom a large share of important passing routes travelled and the most influential destination inside the network.
That combination is particularly revealing. A high Load value alone can identify responsibility for connecting the structure, while a high PageRank indicates that teammates repeatedly selected the player as an important destination; when both are high, the player is not simply circulating possession but acting as a genuine structural hub.
Alexis Mac Allister offered a different profile. His Load Centrality of 0.248 was the second-highest Liverpool value, while his PageRank of 0.105 and team-leading Closeness Centrality of 2.802 show how consistently he could connect with the rest of the network from midfield.
This fits the match itself. Mac Allister was not only present in circulation but also able to move from the deeper left-central zone into more advanced spaces, and that dual role eventually produced both a goal and the final pass for Liverpool’s second.
Tottenham had an even stronger hub — but in a less productive structure
Tottenham’s network was even more concentrated around Marcos Senesi. His Load Centrality reached 0.514 and his PageRank 0.173, both higher than any Liverpool player, making him overwhelmingly important both as a route through the network and as a receiving destination.
Behind him, Martin Dúbravka also carried unusually high network influence, with a 0.195 Load value and 0.155 PageRank. The important point is therefore not that Tottenham lacked passing structure; it is almost the opposite — too much of that structure remained concentrated around the deeper circulation platform rather than being transferred efficiently into attacking threat.
The concentration numbers reinforce that reading. Tottenham’s three most important Load Centrality players accounted for roughly 67.8% of the total, compared with approximately 55.1% for Liverpool, so Spurs were more dependent on a small number of players to carry the network from one area to another.
45’–67.5’: Liverpool push both corridors higher
Liverpool’s movement after half-time became considerably more aggressive. Milos Kerkez shifted into a very high position in the left corridor, while Jeremie Frimpong maintained the opposite width on the right, leaving Liverpool with genuine occupation of both outside lanes rather than simply attacking through one overloaded flank.
That altered the space available inside. Tottenham’s block now had to respect two high external references, which increased the value of receiving between them and opened room for Liverpool’s midfielders and attackers to arrive rather than remain permanently stationed in the last line.
The second goal followed in this phase. Cody Gakpo scored in the 53rd minute from the left side of the penalty area, with Mac Allister involved in the assisted action, giving Liverpool a 2–0 advantage shortly after the restart.
Tottenham reacted with personnel changes and a slightly different central structure. Mateus Fernandes entered and began operating in central-to-left areas, while Lucas Bergvall remained a major circulation point around midfield, but the deeper network still struggled to turn its volume into sustained positive progression.
Tottenham passed more, but Liverpool’s passes carried more threat
This is where the xT profile becomes especially revealing. Liverpool’s passing model produced an xT-per-100-passes figure of 0.737 and a positive net progression of +0.677, while the attacking-third phase generated a positive +0.296 delta xT.
Tottenham’s structure tells almost the inverse story. Their xT per 100 passes was only 0.471, overall net progression finished at -1.211, and their final-third passing produced a remarkable -1.456 net delta xT despite the much larger number of actions recorded there.
That does not mean every Tottenham pass in advanced areas was poor. It means that, collectively, the team frequently moved from more threatening situations into less threatening ones, so possession volume in the final third became very different from actual progression.
Liverpool, by contrast, recorded only 59 passes in the filtered final-third sample but finished with +0.296 net xT from them. Tottenham recorded 156 while ending deeply negative, making this match a useful example of why counting entries or passes near the box can misrepresent attacking efficiency.
How Como Play: Tactical Analysis of Build-Up, Third-Man Combinations and Pressing
This tactical analysis combines Football Hacking event data with a detailed tactical review of three Como matches: Napoli vs Como, Genoa vs Como and Como vs Parma. Rather than treating them as three isolated match reports, the objective is to identify the recurring behaviours that survive different opponents, pressing structures and game states — the principles that help explain
Liverpool could bypass the midfield bottleneck
Both teams showed a midfield bottleneck in the progression model, but Liverpool handled it more effectively. Their defensive and attacking phase scores were both close to 1.0, while the midfield phase fell to only 0.207, suggesting that the team often progressed by finding ways to jump or escape the congested middle rather than relying on slow, continuous advancement through it.
The corridor routes help explain how. From right-sided starting positions, Liverpool repeatedly reached different final-third corridors rather than following one predictable lane, while right-half-space starts also produced entries into the opposite corridor and other interior zones.
One of the clearest patterns involved Milos Kerkez, whose right-corridor-origin sequences frequently ended in the same wide channel, and Lewis Koumas, who appeared as an important advanced destination in those progressions. Liverpool were therefore able to use width as both a direct route and a platform from which to change the final destination.
Tottenham’s progression was more central — and easier to slow
Tottenham’s main progression pattern began through the central corridor, with 55.6% of those sequences also reaching the final third centrally. Omar Marmoush and Rodrigo Bentancur were the main connection associated with that route, showing how Tottenham repeatedly tried to advance through central relationships rather than relying exclusively on wide circulation.
However, Liverpool were particularly effective at disrupting rhythm in precisely the areas where Tottenham needed clean continuation. When Liverpool defended the central zone of their defensive third, Tottenham’s response was repeatedly classified as neutral rather than progressive, while pressure in Liverpool’s left midfield area often forced Spurs into recirculation.
That relationship is visible in the defensive influence numbers. Liverpool finished with a defensive influence index of 0.787, including very high territorial pressure and suppression values, compared with Tottenham’s 0.621 defensive influence score.
67.5’+: Tottenham finally stretch Liverpool, but the game becomes more transitional
Tottenham’s late movement became wider after the score moved to 2–1. Andy Robertson advanced much further along the left corridor, while Sávio eventually provided an aggressive reference on the opposite right side, producing one of Spurs’ clearest periods of two-sided attacking occupation.
The goal that reopened the match came from a different source, however. Conor Gallagher scored with a header from close range after a corner in the 69th minute, cutting Liverpool’s lead to one and changing the risk profile of the final phase.
Liverpool’s own structure changed with their midfield substitutions. Dominik Szoboszlai occupied a more advanced right half-space, while Alexis Mac Allister continued appearing higher toward the left half-space, creating two different interior receiving lines rather than asking one midfielder to dominate both sides of the pitch.
This mattered because Liverpool no longer needed to control every possession. The priority became preserving enough structural stability to survive Tottenham’s wider attacks while retaining players capable of attacking the space that appeared when Spurs committed more bodies forward.
Szoboszlai’s late movement turns into the final goal
The late winner is a particularly clean example of movement becoming action. Szoboszlai had increasingly occupied an advanced central-to-right position during the closing phase, and in stoppage time he arrived centrally outside the box to score Liverpool’s third with his right foot.
That goal also completes the broader story of Liverpool’s midfield. Mac Allister supplied the early scoring action and later helped create the second goal, while Szoboszlai’s later introduction gave Liverpool a fresh advanced receiver who could attack the space in front of Tottenham’s retreating defensive structure.
A denser pass network did not mean a better attacking network
Tottenham actually finished with the denser passing graph: 0.546 edge density and 0.763 reciprocity, compared with Liverpool’s 0.496 and 0.706. In simple terms, Tottenham had more interconnected passing relationships and more two-way links between players, but Liverpool’s network produced superior efficiency and a higher overall health score.
This is one of the most important analytical lessons from Liverpool 3–1 Tottenham. A network can look rich because the ball circulates through many connections, but if those connections are concentrated too deeply, repeatedly return toward safe zones or lose xT as they enter the final third, network density becomes a description of circulation rather than evidence of attacking superiority.
Liverpool’s network was less dense but more useful. Araujo gave the team a stable structural hub, Mac Allister connected circulation with higher-value zones, the full-width occupation increased the space between Tottenham’s defensive references, and the second-half substitutions preserved a threat behind the ball even after Tottenham reduced the deficit.
Final takeaway: Liverpool won the value battle, not the passing-volume battle
Liverpool’s 3–1 win was built on a more productive relationship between structure, progression and movement. Tottenham could circulate through Senesi and their deeper network, but Liverpool were better at converting their passing structure into positive xT and at disrupting Spurs whenever their possession approached the areas where it needed to become genuinely dangerous.
The four temporal phases also show why average positions are not enough. Liverpool shifted from a balanced opening structure, to a more advanced Mac Allister before half-time, to aggressive two-sided width after the break, and finally to a late configuration in which Szoboszlai attacked the right half-space and central finishing zones; the team’s structure evolved with the score rather than remaining fixed.
For Tottenham, the late expansion of the left and right corridors created more territorial presence but came after the underlying passing network had already shown its main limitation. More possession routes and more final-third actions did not guarantee more threat, and Liverpool’s combination of defensive suppression and more efficient progression ultimately separated the teams.
Paid subscribers: download the match-event XLSX
Paid subscribers can download the complete Liverpool vs Tottenham match-event spreadsheet below the paywall. The XLSX contains the event-level match data for further analysis, modelling, visualisation and independent tactical research.