MAUR LOVE FOR HARRY HOTSHOT
There have been some landmark victories, but few can have been as significant as this.
Not in the scale of its achievement because this Leicester team is a ghost of its title-winning past.
Not in what it means to those blue-chip others with top-end business on their agenda.
Not in its style, not in its substance, not in any sort of ominous excellence whatsoever.
But significant in what it averted.
Had Liverpool’s collapse from two dominant positions in this game been completed, Klopp would have had to deal with the questions about the defensive AND mental strength of this team.
Questions that, most crucially, would have come from himself.
No matter how this win was achieved – and the irony of Simon Mignolet somehow saving the day is stark – it’s given Klopp a psychological breather.
No wonder – when Mo Salah, Philippe Coutinho and Jordan Henderson scored – Klopp jabbed the air as though he was pummelling an imaginary critic. And after Liverpool hung on, Klopp can now turn up for work, again armed with the positives he likes to dwell on, positives that were beginning to look like driftwood on the Mersey. The main positive plank was Coutinho. As TOTTENHAM manager Mauricio Pochettino says he is “in love” with his goal-machine striker Harry Kane.
After seeing the Spurs and England forward score a dazzling double to defeat battling West Ham, Pochettino couldn’t conceal his admiration for his 24-year-old hitman.
The Argentinian boss said: “Harry is not only the best English striker, he is one of the best in the world.
“It’s too hard for me to find the right words to describe him.
“I am in love with him like the fans and his team-mates are in love with him. Not only because he scores goals but because of how he is – professional, humble and a very good example.
“He keeps all the values that managers like me appreciate a lot and that is why I am in love with him.”
Hammers boss Slaven Bilic was swooning too – despite seeing Kane pile on the misery for his side after three successive clean sheets.
Bilic said: “Of course, I can understand why he says that.
“The best compliment I can give is that our three centre-backs – Jose Fonte, Winston Reid and Angelo Ogbonna – had a really good game. They were mostly up against him and Dele Alli and they didn’t really have a bad game.
“But still Kane was using the situations and he decided the game for them – and my centre-backs were good. So that tells you everything.
“If there are 10 great strikers he’s up there. If there are two of them he probably isn’t but if there are five or 10 then he definitely is there because he is doing it week in week out now... apart from August.” Pochettino was not happy his new £24million full-back Serge Aurier was sent off in the 69th minute for a second yellow card for fouling Andy Carroll minutes after his first booking. It left Spurs to survive a fierce last 20 minutes of intense pressure from West Ham.
Pochettino said: “The first yellow wasn’t a yellow card. I was disappointed. He got the second yellow card and then the red. But I’m happy with him. He’s settled in well.”
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