• Cristiano Romero and Emerson Royal in confrontation at Anfield
• Tottenham’s 4-2 defeat at Liverpool their fourth consecutive loss

Ange Postecoglou claimed he had no issues with the Tottenham defenders Cristian Romero and Emerson Royal becoming embroiled in a half-time row at Anfield as it showed “they care” about the club’s plummeting form.

Spurs were well beaten by Liverpool in Jürgen Klopp’s penultimate home game with Mohamed Salah, recalled to the starting lineup following a spat with his manager at West Ham, sparking the win.

Tottenham were offered a route towards Champions League qualification but ignored the directions. Ange Postecoglou’s team were woeful as they succumbed to a fourth consecutive Premier League defeat that should extinguish their top four hopes as Liverpool rediscovered their verve in Jürgen Klopp’s penultimate home game. The scoreline flattered the conquered.

Liverpool cruised towards victory for 72 minutes until Spurs’ substitute Richarlison and captain Son Heung-min sparked a mini-crisis of confidence among Klopp’s team. It soon passed. For the second Sunday in succession Spurs came alive only when staring at a comprehensive pounding but, just like the north London derby, their late flurry fooled no-one. Liverpool were richly deserving of a win delivered by Mohamed Salah, Andy Robertson, Cody Gakpo and Harvey Elliott.

• Updates from the 4.30pm BST kick-off at Anfield
• Quansah finds solace from top four place

Premier League latest

In-form Chelsea are battering West Ham in their 2pm game. The match between Brighton and Aston Villa is goalless. But it might not be for long: a penalty has just been awarded. Clickity click click click.

Ange Postecoglou says he does not care about the questions being asked about Tottenham’s inability to defend securely from set pieces. The manager believes he will get it right. But he could not avoid another hail of them as his team slumped to a third defeat on the spin, their season in increasing danger of fizzling out.

It was Chelsea’s night, this a victory to fire their hopes of a Europa League finish to a remorselessly testing season. They were excellent in the first half, Spurs so poor that Postecoglou howled in frustration on a number of occasions. It was difficult to remember seeing him so unhappy.

• Premier League updates from the 7.30pm BST kick-off
• Live scoreboard | Read Football Daily | And mail Simon

The team sheets have been handed to the match officials, and the names scrawled upon them were these:

Chelsea: Petrovic, Gilchrist, Chalobah, Badiashile, Cucurella, Caicedo, Gallagher, Madueke, Palmer, Mudryk, Jackson. Subs: Bettinelli, Casadei, Deivid Washington, Tauriainen, Castledine, Acheampong, George, Dyer, Sturge.
Tottenham Hotspur: Vicario, Porro, Romero, van de Ven, Emerson, Bissouma, Sarr, Johnson, Kulusevski, Son, Richarlison. Subs: Skipp, Hojbjerg, Dragusin, Maddison, Gil Salvatierra, Lo Celso, Bentancur, Austin, Moore.
Referee: Robert Jones (Merseyside).

Leading players have not been at their usual club levels since going to the Asian Cup or Africa Cup of Nations

On Thursday night Son Heung-min will lead Tottenham out against Chelsea for a game vital to the north London club’s chances of finishing in the top four and securing Champions League football. Had the Spurs captain not headed to the Asian Cup in the middle of the season, it is possible his club would be closer to the promised land, not just because Ange Postecolgou would have had his top scorer available for those few weeks but also because the forward might well have been in better condition in the time since.

In England the discourse around mid-season continental tournaments focuses on the inconvenience for clubs as players head to Asia or Africa. Less is said about the physical and mental effect on those involved. Mohamed Salah, Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool must wish that the Egyptian had never reported for Africa Cup of Nations duty in January given the injury sustained and the loss of form since.

• Ben White caused problems for Guglielmo Vicario at set pieces
• ‘If I saw my players do it, I’d be saying: “Mate, seriously?”’

Ange Postecoglou says he would not want his Tottenham players to engage in the game’s darker arts on set pieces as Ben White did for Arsenal in ­Sunday’s north London derby . White was assigned to distract the Spurs goalkeeper, Guglielmo Vicario, taking a starting position behind him on corners and, just before the kick was taken, moving around, backing in and blocking him from reaching the ball.

The Arsenal defender performed the trick on both of his team’s first-half corners – no Spurs player was close to him – and each resulted in a goal: the first a Pierre-Emile Højbjerg own goal for 1-0, the second a Kai Havertz header for a 3-0 half-time lead. Before the first corner, White had grabbed at the cuff of one of Vicario’s gloves. None of his actions drew a whistle from the referee, Michael Oliver.

Arsenal’s world-class attacker on embracing the occasion of a pivotal derby at Tottenham with team’s title hopes on the line

Even when the stakes could barely be higher, Bukayo Saka finds the capacity to step back a little and marvel. He needs no telling what Sunday’s north London derby means , the possibilities victory would unlock and the likely implications of falling short, but it would not feel the same without a sense of fun.

“When you go in the stadium and see the atmosphere, it’s beautiful,” he says of those afternoons when Arsenal and Spurs face off. “I try to enjoy it. There has to be an element of seriousness, discipline and focus, but you have to try to enjoy it as well.”

There’s always been a tension between connection to place and the commercial reality – but it has never felt more acute

Charlie Hurley , the greatest player Sunderland ever had, died on Monday. He was tough, powerful and composed, captain of Alan Brown’s promotion side of 1963-64, which may have been the best of all postwar Sunderland teams. Certainly it was the side my dad talked about the most, far more than the FA Cup-winning team of nine years later. Montgomery, Irwin, Ashurst, Harvey, Hurley, McNab, Usher, Herd, Sharkey, Crossan, Mulhall: names that flitted through my childhood as legends of a greater age. Imagine if Brian Clough hadn’t done his knee.

George Mulhall, the Scottish outside-left, was his favourite, I think, but only because there was no point celebrating Hurley; everybody did that. Decades later, fans still sung Hurley’s name and bought No 5 shirts with his name on the back. His popularity at this remove is hard to explain. Other than promotion, Hurley won nothing. He wasn’t even local: born in Cork, he moved to Millwall at an early age and spoke with a pronounced London accent.