Liverpool 4 Tottenham 0: Roberto Soldado rejects claims that Tim Sherwood punched him while Aaron Lennon labels rumours 'b*******'

Tottenham players Roberto Soldado and Aaron Lennon have rubbished rumours of a training ground bust-up between the former and manager Tim Sherwood, with Lennon labelling talk of the Spurs manager punching his striker as “b*******”.

Spurs were thrashed 4-0 at Anfield as Liverpool soared to the top of the Premier League thanks to goals from Luis Suarez, Philippe Coutinho and Jordan Henderson along with a Younes Kaboul own-goal inside two minutes. The result marked the seventh defeat in eight matches against the top four this season, in which Spurs have conceded four goals or more on five occasions.

Sherwood, who remained in the stands for the match, was so infuriated with his side’s dismal performance that he kept them locked in the changing room for 45 minutes after the full-time whistle, and they now sit in sixth position, four points behind Everton having played a game more and crucially eight points behind fourth-placed rivals Arsenal.

The manner of defeat was the most disappointing for Spurs’ supporters, and triggered rumours of Sherwood’s imminent sacking on social media sites. With claims of an announcement at 8.30pm Sunday evening proving false, attention then turned to further rumours that Sherwood had allegedly punched Soldado in the aftermath of the defeat, but the out-of-form striker took to his Instagram account to rubbish such claims and said the squad must “fight together” in order to turn around their fortunes.

“Bad game today and our options to reach Champions League decrease! It is time now, more than ever, to fight together,” Soldado posted, having endured another frustrating day in front of goal at Anfield.

“Rumours do not benefit (us) at all, and everything that has been said is absolutely false. COYS!”

Lennon backed up his team-mates dismissal of a changing room incident, but also accepted that the performance was simply not good enough and that the squad must up their game immediately.

“Today was not good enough and we let everyone down,” the winger wrote on his Twitter account. “But the rumours about the boss hitting someone are b*******. Crazy how powerful Twitter is.”

Sherwood’s decision to remain in the stands led to chants from the away section of fans of “where is our manager?” but he claimed that he is “not shirking any responsibility” for the heavy loss and stressed that there was little he could do on the sidelines once they went 2-0 down.

“They are entitled to have an opinion,” Sherwood said of the chants aimed at him from the Spurs supporters.

“I am not shirking any responsibility. At 2-0, and the game going away at 3-0, I am going to learn more from my players from sitting up there rather than getting in trouble on the touchline.

“You have seen enough of me ranting and raving but I have to analyse it. Our performances against the top four have not been good enough.”