Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou offered a relaxed response to questions on the officiating of their win vs. Liverpool, largely sidestepping the main talking points.
Jurgen Klopp‘s response to the dismal officiating of Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat vs. Tottenham was calm by the German’s standards – he knows the consequences of reacting angrily.
As coach of the winning side, Postecoglou had more freedom to speak on some of the decisions that altered the game.
Instead, he chose to largely swerve the big questions, saying: “I’ll leave it for others to sort of decide whether they’re right or wrong.”
On Curtis Jones‘ red card, he added: “It’s hard for me to comment on decisions on opposition teams, I think the first one, Bissa (Yves Bissouma) has got a decent whack on his ankle and it didn’t look great.”
While, on the subject of Diogo Jota‘s two yellow cards, he said: “I just think the second one came from our pressure, to be honest.
“I thought we were pretty relentless in the second half and we didn’t allow them to breathe. We obviously had the man extra and there were a fair few fouls and I just think there was an accumulation of those things.”
The former Celtic boss was also asked for his thoughts on video assistant refereeing in general, and gave a more detailed response on this topic.
“You might have to dig up some research on it,” the Australian explained.
“I think I’m on record saying I’ve never really been a fan of [VAR] since it’s come in, not for any other reason than I think it just really complicates areas of the game that I thought were pretty clear in the past.
“But, I can see at the same time why it was inevitable that technology would come in, but I guess we have to deal with it.
“The biggest problem I think we fail to grasp is that no form of technology is going to make the game errorless.
“We used to understand that errors were part of the game, including officiating errors. You know, you have to cop it sometimes, some people cop it better than others, but that was part of the game.
“The game is literally littered with historical refereeing decisions that weren’t right, but we all accepted weren’t right and we all accepted that was part of the game because we’re all human beings.
“But, I think people are under the misconception that VAR is going to be errorless.
“So much of are game isn’t factual, it’s down to interpretation and we’re still human beings and going to make mistakes, the same way managers make mistakes and the same way players make mistakes.
“So, I think when you put such a high bar on something, invariably it’s going to fail.
“So if people were thinking VAR was going to be something at some point that’s perfect, that’s never going to happen.”
While there is truth in what Postecoglou is saying, the incompetence shown by officials, specifically in the Tottenham vs. Liverpool match, is something that can certainly be improved on.
