Liverpool Women Impress in Draw with Spurs Ahead of City Clash

By the time the fixtures dropped, Liverpool Women could map out the opening stretch of their 2026-27 campaign with cold logic. Newly promoted Charlton to start. A Spurs side hovering around mid-table last year. Then the benchmark: defending FAWSL champions Manchester City. Four points from those three? That would have sounded realistic. Sensible, even.

Reality has arrived with a bit more edge.

A 4-0 dismantling of Charlton on opening day didn’t just tick the first box. It ripped it up. The scoreline, the control, the swagger – it all hinted that this might be a Liverpool side ready to move beyond survival talk and back into the conversation for the league’s crowded middle pack.

So when Sunday’s meeting with Tottenham finished 1-1, the table said “on track.” The performance suggested something more.

Manager Gareth Taylor certainly saw it that way.

“I’m really proud of the performance,” he said afterwards. “I felt we were the better team. We improved second half, but I still felt we were probably the team that were looking more likely in the first. I think where we’ve just come up short today is our final action.”

That final action haunted Liverpool as the minutes ticked by. The patterns were there, the territory was theirs, the pressure constant. The finish, often, was not.

The second half in particular turned into a red siege. Liverpool pinned Spurs back, recycled the ball, and came again. Tottenham had their moments, but only that – moments. The visitors spent long stretches struggling to escape their own half, forced deeper and deeper as Liverpool’s confidence grew with every regained possession.

“For the amount of play that we had, it felt in the second half that Tottenham really couldn’t get out of their half but only for a couple of moments,” Taylor said. “I’m really proud of the team and where we’ve taken it to now. I thought the goal was quality and I thought we could have had a penalty.”

That sense of injustice will sting, but it also tells its own story. Liverpool weren’t hanging on. They were asking questions, forcing decisions, pushing Spurs into desperate defending. This wasn’t a point rescued; it was two points that slipped away.

Context matters. Last season, this kind of fixture often drifted away from Liverpool. Pressure would fade, gaps would open, belief would ebb. Now, after a ruthless opening-day win and an assertive display against a seasoned Spurs side, the mood is different. Even if the original four-point target from the first three games holds, reaching it would mark a clear step forward from last year’s struggles.

And that’s before you get to the eye test. Across pre-season and into these early weeks, Liverpool have looked sharper, more cohesive, more certain of who they are and how they want to play. The patterns are clearer. The intent is obvious.

“There are a lot of elements of our game today that we’re really satisfied with,” Taylor said. “Tottenham are a good team. They’re not going to give up the spaces easily and they wanted to be aggressive and change their press in the first half to try to stop us gaining so much ball.”

Spurs did adjust. They tried to disrupt the rhythm, to close the lanes that Liverpool kept finding. It worked in flashes. It never truly took control away from the hosts.

Now comes the real examination.

A rare Friday night kickoff brings Manchester City into focus, champions and standard-setters, the kind of opponent that exposes any illusion about where a team really stands. Liverpool will walk into that game with four points from two matches and a performance against Spurs that suggests they are no longer content to simply survive.

They wanted more than a draw. The bigger question now is whether that hunger can carry them through 90 minutes against the best in the country.