By Opta Analyst | Created at 2026-09-11 10:41:03 | Updated at 2026-09-19 02:56:19
1 week ago
An unlikely top-of-the-table clash awaits on Matchday 2 as Liverpool and Tottenham look to make it back-to-back wins to start the new WSL campaign. Both impressed on the opening weekend, but who will be able to build on their encouraging start?
Liverpool vs Tottenham: The Key Stats
- The Opta supercomputer gives Liverpool a narrow edge, with the Reds winning 40.3% of its 10,000 pre-match simulations compared to Tottenham’s 33.1%.
- Spurs are aiming to begin a WSL season with consecutive victories for only the third time in their history, having previously done so in 2021-22 and 2025-26. On both occasions, they went on to finish fifth in the final standings.
- Liverpool have lost their last three home games in all competitions, having won four in a row beforehand. The Reds haven’t lost four in a row at home as a WSL side since January 2019.
Liverpool could hardly have asked for a better start, opening their campaign with a 4-0 victory over newcomers Charlton, while Spurs made a statement of their own by overcoming London rivals West Ham 3-1.
Both sides now have the opportunity to turn those opening-day performances into early-season momentum, although for Liverpool, returning home also means confronting one of the trends that followed them through the back end of last season.
The Reds have lost their last three home games in all competitions, having previously won four in a row. They haven’t suffered four consecutive home defeats as a WSL side since January 2019.
After a tumultuous 2025-26 season, Gareth Taylor ultimately kept Liverpool in the WSL and has since used the summer to reshape his squad, bringing in several intriguing additions, including Khiara Keating, Natalina Ramos and Vivien Endemann.
Perhaps the brightest spark among Liverpool’s new arrivals was Endemann, who made an immediate impact on her WSL debut against Charlton, scoring and assisting in the 4-0 victory.
The Germany international was a constant threat down Liverpool’s right flank, repeatedly driving her side into dangerous areas. She created four chances, the joint-most of any player on Matchday 1, while also recording a match-high 10 touches in the opposition box and completing three dribbles, also a joint-high total.
Endemann now has the opportunity to make a little WSL history. No player has ever both scored and assisted in each of their first two appearances in the competition. If she can repeat her opening-day impact against Tottenham, she would become the first.
It wasn’t just Liverpool’s new arrivals who impressed on opening weekend. Their victory was built on remarkable control at both ends of the pitch.
Liverpool faced just two shots against Charlton, the fewest of any WSL side on MD1, and were the only team not to face a single shot on target. It was also the joint-fewest shots the Reds had ever faced in a WSL match.
At the heart of that performance was captain Grace Fisk. She completed 121 of her 122 passes (99.2%) and had a match-high 134 touches, helping Liverpool dominate possession and build from the back.
And if that wasn’t enough, Fisk also scored twice – as many goals as she had managed across 79 appearances over the previous four WSL campaigns.
It was an almost complete captain’s performance, and Liverpool will need that same level of control against a Tottenham side arriving with plenty of attacking confidence of their own.
Central to that threat is Kirsty Hanson, who enjoyed a dream WSL debut for Spurs with a brace against West Ham.
Hanson has quietly become one of the competition’s most productive attacking players. Since the start of 2024-25, only four players have been directly involved in more WSL goals than her 22 (17 goals, five assists).
That threat extends beyond the WSL, too. Hanson was joint-sixth for goals among players across Europe’s top five leagues last season, alongside Manuela Giugliano, Laura Freigang and Sandra Jessen. Her ability to punish teams in transition particularly stands out: no player across those leagues scored more goals from fast breaks than Hanson’s three.
Her opening-weekend performance was another example of just how clinical she can be. Hanson scored twice from only three shots worth a combined 0.32 xG, helping Spurs to a 3-1 victory despite Martin Ho’s side having just 41% possession.
Hanson’s form is part of a bigger picture at Tottenham. Now entering his second season in charge, Martin Ho will be looking for the formula that can take Spurs another step forward, and potentially begin to disrupt the WSL’s traditional top four.
His first campaign represented a significant turnaround. Tottenham collected 36 points, matching their joint-best WSL finish, having ended the previous 2024-25 season down in 11th.
The scale of Ho’s impact is perhaps best illustrated by his overall record.
He has the best points-per-game rate of any Tottenham manager in WSL history (1.70), collecting 39 points from 23 matches. His 12 victories (D3 L8) are already just one fewer than predecessor Robert Vilahamn managed across 44 WSL games (W13 D12 L19).
The challenge now is turning that progress into something more sustained and closing the gap to the WSL’s established leading sides.
Liverpool vs Tottenham Head-to-Head
Sunday provides an early opportunity to see how that new-look Liverpool side measures up against established WSL opposition – and Taylor himself has an impressive record in this fixture.
The Liverpool manager has now taken charge of exactly 200 games in his managerial career and has recorded 12 wins against Tottenham Hotspur (D1 L2). He has only beaten Everton (15) and Leicester City (13) more often across all competitions.
There is another reason for Liverpool to feel confident. Despite their recent struggles at home, they are unbeaten on their turf against Tottenham in the WSL (W2 D2), including a 2-0 victory in this fixture last season – a result that finally delivered the Red’s first league win of that campaign on MD13.
Yet overall, there has been remarkably little to separate these sides. Across their last nine WSL meetings, Liverpool and Tottenham have each won three, with the other three ending in draws.
Liverpool have had the slight edge more recently, losing just one of their last five WSL meetings with Spurs (W2 D2), although that defeat came in their most recent encounter – a 2-1 loss away from home last season.
Their last meeting at Liverpool was rather more one-sided. The Reds attempted 18 shots, more than they managed against any other opponent in a single 2025-26 WSL game, while restricting Tottenham to just five – Spurs’ second-lowest total in a league match last season.
Recent history suggests there may be little between them again on Sunday, but after such impressive starts to the season, this is an early opportunity for one of these sides to show their MD1 performance was more than just a promising beginning.
That sets up an intriguing battle on Sunday: a Liverpool side that did not allow a single shot on target on MD1 against a Spurs attack led by the prolific Kirsty Hanson, who has shown she needs very little possession, or very few chances, to make a decisive impact.
Liverpool vs Tottenham Prediction
There is little to separate these two sides on recent history, and the Opta supercomputer numbers reflect that.
Liverpool are given a 40.3% chance of victory, compared with 33.1% for Tottenham, while the draw sits at 26.6%.
So while Liverpool have the edge, this is expected to be one of the tighter contests of the weekend.
Liverpool vs Tottenham Predicted Lineups
Liverpool: Khiara Keating, Alejandra Bernabé, Grace Fisk, Jenna Clark, Sam Kerr, Kirsty Maclean, Fuka Nagano, Cornelia Kapocs, Ceri Holland, Vivien Endemann, Beata Olsson.
Head coach: Gareth Taylor
Tottenham: Lisa Kop, Julie Blakstad, Amanda Nildén, Toko Koga, Cailtin Dijkstra, Drew Spence, Eveliina Summanen, Matilda Vinberg, Signe Gaupset, Kirsty Hanson, Cathinka Tandberg.
Head coach: Martin Ho
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 16,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world, and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of Sunday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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