Tottenham’s Postecoglou: VAR ‘diminishing authority’ of refs

Ange Postecoglou said VAR “diminished the authority” of referees after Tottenham’s 4-1 home defeat to Chelsea, which featured nine separate checks leading into 21 minutes of added time.

Spurs suffered their first Premier League defeat of the season despite taking an early lead through Dejan Kulusevski as Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie were sent off either side of half-time.

Cole Palmer equalized with a penalty in the 35th minute after Romero was sent off during a VAR review for a late tackle on Enzo Fernández before Udogie saw a second yellow for a lunge on Raheem Sterling.

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Chelsea struggled to break down Tottenham’s nine-man side until Nicolas Jackson scored a hat-trick in the final 15 minutes to give Mauricio Pochettino a victory in his first return to Spurs after being sacked by the club in November 2019.

Asked about the heavy use of VAR that evening, which also saw five goals disallowed, Postecoglou said: “I don’t like it. I don’t like standing. I don’t like that all the theater wait for decisions.

“But I know I’m in the wilderness with this one. I’m a bit alone. In my 26 years, I’ve always been ready to accept the referee’s decision, whether it’s good or bad or whatever, and I’ve had some surprises in my career, let me tell you.

“I’ve had some too, but I just want the game to be played. But when we’re complaining about decisions every week, that’s what’s going to happen. People are going to scrutinize everything to make sure they’re comfortable, it’s true, and even at the end we’re still not happy.

“So what does that mean? It means we’re going to see a lot of people standing there. I just think it diminishes the authority of the referee. You can’t tell me that the referees control the matches. They are The control is outside of that. But that’s the way the game is and you have to accept it and just try to continue.

“It seems there is no real call for us to accept the referee’s decisions again for the majority. I understand the technology on the goal line because it is simple. It has arrived and no one complained about it.”

Postecoglou went on to say that it was impossible to seek a perfect game in which no bad decisions were made, while adding that part of the blame lay with the managers who complained about the calls week after week.

“It’s not new. I’ve been doing this for 26 years,” Postecoglou said. “I’ve heard managers, myself included, complain about past decisions, but we kept going. We didn’t feel the need to find a silver bullet for this.

“As I said, I don’t think it’s a viable option because we seem to have opened this door, allowed the technology and now we want transparency.

“I guarantee you the next thing will be the referees getting on the microphone and explaining the decisions. There are plenty of other sports where you can watch the referees doing that, I don’t think it’s football. Anyway, I think I’m in the wilderness on this one.

Calls have been made for Premier League managers to meet en masse with the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) refereeing body to discuss improving the standard of refereeing, while Arsenal released a statement supporting Mikel Arteta after expressing his concerns following the Gunners match. -0 defeat at Newcastle United this weekend.

“Premier League managers should just manage their football clubs,” Postecoglou said. “I have never spoken and will never speak to a referee about the rules of the game. I was taught that you grow up and respect the officials.

“You know what managers do? I’ll tell you what managers do, myself included, we try to find ways to bend the rules. Tell me what the rule is, and I guarantee you’ll have a room full of managers dealing with” how can I get around this.

“We are not the right people. People keep saying that. I don’t agree with that. What I want is for the best officials to always be qualified to referee the game. But I think it’s very difficult for referees to officiate these days.

“Their authority is constantly diminished. I grew up afraid of referees. They would be like policemen. Today, I guess we answer to policemen too. I’m old school. I come from a bygone era. I just love the purity of the game.

“That’s part of my problem. I have to accept it and find a way to work with it, but it goes against everything I want to try to do. I want my team to play fast, on offense, at a high pace, Go ahead, football. If we get a red card, it’s a penalty against us, so what? Let’s go ahead and start again. But then we have to wait two minutes to decide, determine if anything was offside or not.

“Let the linesman make the decision. Remember when it was the benefit of the doubt? Do we all remember that? For the striker? We all lived with it. The match didn’t not collapsed. But I’m like an old man “A man who shouts at the clouds, my friend. I’ll beat myself up for it, but it’s who I am. “

The defeat prevented Spurs from returning to top spot in the Premier League. They are now two points behind leaders Manchester City, on 26, after 11 games played so far this season.

Tottenham host Wolves on Saturday, while Chelsea face Man City at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.