When the new season’s fixtures were released in the summer it was perhaps the first game Tottenham’s players looked out for.
Forget Chelsea or West Ham. Maybe even Arsenal. The one team the Spurs squad would have been itching to face this season were Liverpool.
Brushed aside in last season’s Champions League final, revenge would have been high on the agenda.
Liverpool players celebrate lifting the Champions League after victory over Tottenham
Jurgen Klopp is serenaded by his players after masterminding the success last season
Mohamed Salah’s early penalty set the tone for Liverpool in the 2-0 win in Madrid
Harry Kane reflects on a missed opportunity for Tottenham after the final whistle
So too a thirst to prove it was the starting post of a new era, not the end of one.
But, 10 games into the new season, and it is resembling exactly the latter. They have collected just 12 points from their opening nine games and a fog of negativity has gripped the club.
Mauricio Pochettino and half the first-team squad don’t look like they want to be there anymore.
By contrast Liverpool are not just European champions but sitting pretty at the top of the Premier League with eight wins from nine
So just what has happened in the 148 days between that final and Sunday’s meeting to create such a chasm between the two rivals? Sportsmail take a look.
What have the managers done since June?
Klopp punches the air after Liverpool’s late win over Leicester earlier this month
Mauricio Pochettino ponders Tottenham’s struggles during the home draw with Watford
While Klopp was sunning it up in Mexico and basking in the glow of his crowning achievement, Pochettino spent 10 days at home and didn’t want to leave.
Contrast Pochettino’s reaction to losing in Madrid, to what Klopp did after the disappointment of being well beaten by Real Madrid in Kiev 12 months earlier.
The Liverpool boss was caught on camera singing songs with fans in the early hours the morning after on his return home.
He was then papped beaming on Spanish beaches as he took the opportunity to get away from football.
Klopp and Liverpool were energised for the following season. Squad shortcomings were fixed, rough edges smoothed over
Pochettino has, instead, allowed a hangover to fester at Tottenham and their new state-of-the-art stadium.
He talked of leaving in the build-up to the June final, and then after it too. The warning signs were there. Talk of a rift between Pochettino and chairman Daniel Levy has bubbled under the surface for months, with the manager clearly dissatisfied by the club’s transfer activity in the summer.
There was no bounce going into the new season. Pochettino has cut a moody figure, and that has seeped into the club.
Liverpool haven’t stopped bouncing since the disappointment of Kiev. And after finally landing his European crown, Klopp has simply not allowed complacency to creep into his players. Nor has the mood flattened after missing out on last season’s title by one point.
Many would have expected Manchester City to be six points clear at this stage, not Liverpool.
And what about the players?
Sadio Mane drags Adam Lallana and team-mates back to the centre circle at Old Trafford
James Milner stands with arms folded after his winner from the penalty spot over Leicester
Virgil van Dijk poses with the UEFA Men’s Player of the Year award in Monaco in August
Acclaim has followed Liverpool’s players high and wide since June. Virgil van Dijk won the UEFA Men’s Player of the Year award in August and was considered unlucky to miss out on the Best FIFA Men’s Player gong to Lionel Messi last month.
Seven of the 11 players that started the final are on the shortlist for the Ballon d’Or.
Trent Alexander-Arnold has entered the Guinness World Records for most assists by a Premier League defender while Mohamed Salah was on the front of GQ magazine.
Neither success nor recognition has gone to their heads, despite the headlines created from Sadio Mane’s public spat with Salah as he was substituted at Burnley in August.
The ‘mentality monsters’, as Klopp christened them in April, are a harmonious group, the core of which are in or reaching their peak years.
The way they gathered around Adam Lallana after he scored his first goal in nearly two-and-a-half years at Old Trafford showed how they enjoy each other’s success.
But there was also the hunger of Mane, so keen for the three points that he dragged Lallana and Co back to the centre circle for the restart.
Kane and his Tottenham team-mates pictured during their 2-1 defeat by Leicester
Christian Eriksen comes to terms with Bayern Munich’s onslaught in the Champions League
If Liverpool are ‘mentality monsters’, what does that make Tottenham? The second-half capitulation to Bayern Munich this month had all the hallmarks of a team not playing for each other.
Jermaine Jenas cited on co-commentary the mental collapse that has occurred in moments this season and has seen leads quickly slip away and margins of defeat widen.
He said: ‘This is a big wake up call for this football club. These are the types of results where do you start to look in the dressing room, you start to ask those questions – are they reacting to what is being asked of them?
In the aftermath of the game Christian Eriksen had to emphatically deny internet reports that team-mate Jan Vertonghen had an affair with his girlfriend, describing them as ‘bulls***’.
Eriksen failed to get a summer move and has sulked his way around the pitch since. His demeanour has been emblematic of Spurs’ malaise.
Dele Alli looks lost, a shadow of the wonderkid with the world at his feet of just a few years ago, while Harry Kane admits it’s his toughest time as a footballer.
The bulk of the side has been together now for several years, but instead of reaching a crescendo they are falling off a cliff. A lack of investment has harmed a squad that was drifting and needed regeneration.
There is only so long a squad can tread water before it starts sinking, tired of the message coming from the top.
What’s happened on the pitch?
Mane is congratulated by Van Dijk after netting the opener against Leicester recently
Liverpool so nearly made it through the entirety of daylight saving time without dropping a single point.
The run ended at Old Trafford last weekend but is nonetheless a remarkable passage of form. Seventeen straight wins from last season’s title run in to this season’s early charge fell just one short of Manchester City’s record.
Add the Champions League triumph into the middle of it and it’s even more impressive.
Tottenham’s form could hardly be more different.
They left it late to edge past Aston Villa on the opening day, and were unable to capitalise on a fortunate comeback draw at Manchester City.
A week later they were beaten at home by Newcastle and let a two-goal lead slip in the North London derby.
They were knocked out of the Carabao Cup by Colchester United after a penalty shootout, were decimated by Bayern Munich at home and thrashed away at Brighton.
Their run to last season’s final has masked a serious nosedive in form since February.
They have won only six of their last 21 Premier League games and haven’t won away from home since January.
Dele Alli looks on during Tottenham’s embarrassing 7-2 home defeat by Bayern Munich
Eriksen and Jan Vertonghen look on during Tottenham’s 3-0 loss away at Brighton
How does the future look?
In both the long and short-term it looks secure for Liverpool. Jurgen Klopp is tied to the club until 2022.
They are, unsurprisingly, keen for him to sign an extension. Publicly, Klopp has distanced himself from any talk beyond the next three years.
He ended his Borussia Dortmund stint after seven years and believes it his natural shelf-life at one club.
All of Liverpool’s key men are contracted to long-term deals and money is in the bank after spending just £1.3million on new recruits in the summer. Only James Milner and Adam Lallana, both north of 30, will be out of contract next summer.
Tottenham, meanwhile, are facing up to the end of the Pochettino era and the break-up of the squad. The cycle appears to be drawing to a close, Spurs having taken every last wring of energy to claw their way to Madrid.
Klopp still has another three years remaining on his six-year contract at Liverpool
Pochettino appears to be approaching the endgame of his time in charge of Tottenham
Sportsmail reported last weekend that Spurs’ players blame the intensity of the manager and his training schedule for their poor start to the season.
Eriksen, Vertonghen and Toby Alderweireld are out of contract next summer and all three are expected to leave for nothing.
Speculation is mounting that Kane will seek to leave as he targets silverware, fearing his ambition won’t be met at Spurs.
Club captain Hugo Lloris is a shadow of the goalkeeper he was. His nomination for the Ballon d’Or shortlist this week was met with derision instead of approval.
Will there be money to spend for the expected outgoings? Only last month chairman Levy warned there would be no loosening of the purse strings.
Spurs’ grand new stadium provides some optimism, but the fear that they won’t be able to provide Champions League football for it next season is very real after their dismal start.
From top to bottom the club looks to be lacking the joined-up thinking that has propelled Sunday’s opponents to the top of the European table.