THE team of presenters, cameramen and engineers despatched by Match Of The Day to fashion an extended feature out of Saturday's encounter at White Hart Lane will probably be taking a similar message back to their BBC offices today: Liverpool's away games aren't proving quite as much fun as they used to.

  Last season, given the potential for goals, gaffes and quite possibly a calamitous Liverpool defeat, a day on the road for Rafael Benitez's men could quite confidently be placed high up the programme's schedule.

  Viewers could gawp at the extraordinary transformation Rafael Benitez's side seemed to undergo away from Anfield, while pundits could raise eyebrows at the perceived naivity of the newly-arrived Spanish contingent.

  So much so, that after the trips to Southampton, Middlesbrough, Birmingham and the like, the awful defeat at Crystal Palace in April saw Liverpool in danger of being typecast.

  Their approach had to change, and although only two of this campaign's 19 journeys have so far been made, it does not seem premature to suggest that it has.

  What Saturday and the opening-day stalemate at Middlesbrough have demonstrated is that Liverpool are developing an altogether tougher, more battle-hardened skin for the challenges that lie outside the comforts of Anfield. As Benitez discovered in his inaugural term in the Premiership, substance must substitute the style away from home.

  Combatting last season's away fragility has been the Spaniard's obvious priority over the summer. In have come the safe hands of Jose Reina, the physicality of Momo Sissoko and the gangly handful that is Peter Crouch; and with particular regard to the latter two, they're not here to demonstrate their array of fancy tricks.

  They've been bought to fulfil a specific role at Anfield - more aggression and bite in Sissoko's case, with Crouch the awkward targetman - and it's on the road that they can most obviously come into their own.

  It'll be some time, of course, before we can cast judgments on their success or otherwise. But what is becoming increasingly clear is that should Liverpool maintain good form at home, they won't be hamstrung by their away form to nearly the same extent as last season.

  Awkward trips to the Riverside - just ask Arsenal - and now White Hart Lane have been negotiated with the kind of mature, controlled performances that with each passing week make those horrow shows of St Mary's and the like seem a thankfully distant memory.

  Such maturity and control usually stems from the defence, and it's no different at Liverpool. Stephen Warnock, with confidence visibly inflated by his call-up to the national squad, gets better by the week and his progress this season is undoubtedly giving the back four more poise. They're yet to concede in the league this season.

  Warnock's rapid improvement has been a bonus for Benitez this season, and the Spaniard is gleefully reaping the benefits.

  "Last season our problem was that we conceded a lot of goals away from home and we lost a lot of games," he said.. "Now we try to control the game. The key is the balance between attack and defence. We are trying to be strong in defence as well as in attack. In the second half we went forward more times and we created more chances."

  Benitez, though, will know how more convincing Liverpool must become on the attack side of that. Of course White Hart Lane, particularly when it is home to the kind of talent that covered the Spurs team-sheet on Saturday, is no place for too many critiques regarding the Merseysiders' goal threat - not many sides are going to win their this season - but one strike in three Premiership games is a statistic that borders on the worrying.

  Not that any kind of blame can so far be laid at the door of Crouch. The striker's Premier-ship debut contained enough moments to suggest he's well capable of fulfilling the brief that's been laid down for him.

  Deployed, surprisingly, alongside Djibril Cisse in a 4-4-2 rather than as a lone targetman, the former Tottenham trainee looked dangerous whenever he was in the penalty area and his head was anywhere near the ball. When his team-mates can pump in a few more balls, and when he's up against less accomplished centre-back combinations than Anthony Gardner and Ledley King, he'll get goals.

Liverpool's Sanz Luis Garcia (c), Tottenham's Young-Pyo Lee (l) & Edgar Davids (r)

  Indeed, had the assistant referee not deemed Steven Gerrard's 69th-minute to have crossed the bye-line mid-flight, Crouch's towering header could well have opened his account in perhaps as classic a way as Benitez could have wished. Ironically, the same fate had befallen Spurs eight minutes earlier when debutant Grzegorz Rasiak thumped in Michael Carrick's corner.

  Even so, Benitez had clearly seen enough to suggest Crouch will be far more than just an object of mirth for opposition fans. Had he provided that something extra?

  For sure," said Benitez. "If you think about it, he played against King and Gardner, two very good players, and he won a lot of balls and he kept the ball well. He has done a good job against a very good central defence.

  "He is a player with quality and we will be able to use him in the Champions League, the Premiership and all the competitions."

  All in all, the lack of goals did not detract from the quality of a game that rarely dipped below a furious pace. In truth Tottenham, with four players making their debut, had the better chances and the greater possession, particularly during the first half, and Reina had to be at full stretch to finger-tip Jermain Defoe's 10th-minute shot around a post.

  Crouch's best supply source was the Gerrard set-piece, and twice within the opening half Crouch's height allowed him to win balls he might not otherwise have done. The second chance was the better, Crouch beating Gardner - hardly diminutive himself - and directing a header just over Paul Robinson's crossbar.

  But although Liverpool threatened sporadically, the colour of the first half's attacking tide was predominantly white and the visitors were particularly fortunate to escape five minutes before the interval.

  Edgar Davids launched a free-kick that Reina couldn't hold, allowing debutant Grzegorz Rasiak to direct a looping header towards the vacant corner of the net. For an age the ball seemed to hang in the air before finally bobbling off the crossbar to safety.

  The interval allowed Benitez to rethink the system he was employing, not least because Dietmar Hamann was an enforced withdrawal. The German had constituted a one-man wall to a free-kick taken on the right flank from Carrick 15 minutes before the break. Hamann did his job admirably, the ball clattering into the back of his head, but his bravery came at the cost of blurred vision in his left eye and at half-time Sissoko was introduced as a straight swap.

  Either because of the switch or despite it, Liverpool improved markedly after the break. With the roaming Carrick given necessarily closer attention, Benitez's men began to mount approaches to the Spurs box on a far more consistent basis.

  Within three minutes Sissoko had set up Luis Garcia for a shot that Robinson had to be alert to save.

  Three minutes on from that and Cisse, having moved to a more right-sided position, was taxing the England number one with a powerful half-volley after Crouch's header down.

  The closest Liverpool came to a goal - Crouch's disallowed goal, aside - was a firecracker of a volley from John Arne Riise that bounced down off the crossbar after Gerrard's corner had been headed out by Paul Stalteri.

  Aside from those chances, Liverpool could be quite content with the point - given the amount of defending they were required to do, any more would have been an unfair reflection of the game.

  Should their improvement on the road continue, however, more is surely not too far away.

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