Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou admitted his team would not let Liverpool score freely after Luis Diaz’s goal was wrongly disallowed for offside.p
Ange Postecoglou was dismissive of suggestions that his team, Tottenham, had allowed Liverpool to score a goal after VAR’s horror show during the match
Ange Postecoglou said his Tottenham team would not allow Liverpool to score an uncontested goal despite Luis Diaz’s goal being wrongly disallowed.
Spurs defeated the Reds in a controversial 2-1 victory when the match was marred by VAR’s decision to disallow a first-half goal from Luis Diaz for offside.
The goal, which would have given the Reds the lead, was mistakenly disallowed by assistant referee Adrian Holmes.
Clumsy VAR duo Darren England and Dan Cook ruled that the Colombian was onside, but mistakenly believed referee Simon Hooper had awarded the goal, and a subsequent miscommunication meant Hooper upheld the linesman’s decision .
Liverpool also received two controversial red cards in the match, before grabbing a 96th-minute winner thanks to an own goal from Joel Matip.
In the days following the controversial match, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said a replay between the teams would be a fair decision, while former Reds pundit Stephen Warnock said Hooper should have asking Tottenham to let Liverpool score after the mistake.
However, Postecoglou denied his side would allow their opponents to score an uncontested goal in a press conference ahead of Spurs’ Premier League match against Luton Town.
“I just don’t see that happening if we want managers to decide things like that.
We have a pretty big responsibility in our football clubs, but we are not their guardians. I wouldn’t make such a decision.”
“I could potentially bring a club to its knees because of my beliefs,” the Australian said. “If someone could tell me in that moment that they could explain everything that happened in a 30-second prism…
I have to make a decision and this wouldn’t happen. It’s different when it’s something clear.
It was a serious mistake because of the lack of communication, but it wasn’t something that was easily explained.
If it had been easily explained, I assume there would have been [less] uproar than there was.”
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The Australian, who led Spurs to an unbeaten start to the season with five wins and two draws in their opening seven games, said mistakes were part of football and would continue to happen unless the sport “explains every decision”. He said:
“We want a perfect, error-free system that doesn’t exist and never will exist unless we want to turn our game into an event that lasts four hours while we explain every decision.”
The 58-year-old also expressed his sympathy for Darren England and Dan Cook, who were in charge of VAR during the match, as their mistake has now seen them excluded from this weekend’s Premier League round. He said:
“I don’t know if that has been decided. I would be surprised if they did that.
This is a serious mistake, but it was a human being who made this mistake. I don’t think anything has to go too far.
